Fanfic100 Touda ficlets
by Silverfox1
Summary: I picked Touda for my fanfic100 claim, so these are almost entirely shikigami ficlets. Mostly cuteness, but not all of it is just sweet. Sorry people, there seems to be no way to turn off the chapter alert when uploading several chapters at once ...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing and I have them all wrong on top of it.

A/N: I wrote these for the fanfic100 challenge, but ended up quitting after completing all 100 ficlets. Unfortunately I only found out they're completely wrong according to Chinese Mythology after having already written the whole thing. (Yes, the shikigami are all real mythologic characters even though there seems to be nothing available about them on the internet in any language I can understand.) Anyway, here are my completely wrong 100 ficlets - or to be exact 99 ficlets, because I've posted A Visitor on this site before and don't want to double-post. I'll start with a group of ficlets that are actually scenes taken out of a longer fic I'll probably never write and then continue with an attempt to post the rest in chronological order. It's a bit odd as there isn't really a continuity and some of them might actually contradict each other. Most of them are meant as individual separate fics.

Title: New Students Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko, a Math teacher (Tenkou and Tsuzuki mentioned)  
Prompt: 088. School.  
Word Count: 389.  
Rating: G Summary: As part of an investigation Tsuzuki is sending Touda and Byakko to school, but unfortunately he forgot to talk through all the details.  
Author's Notes: This one might someday become a part of a larger fic if I can come up with a main plot. (Getting better, though. I finally figured out that some students' souls have disappeared.) There will probably be some more little fics with this theme in the meantime.

New Students

"So what are your names?" the teacher asked slightly impatiently. New students always disrupted a class' routine.

"I'm Touda," the one with the weird glasses stated huffily.

He looked rather cute, if he was entirely honest.

"Touda what?" he demanded sternly.

"Huh?" The boy exchanged a puzzled glance with his friend.

"Well, what's your last name?"

"No last name," the boy insisted. "Just Touda."

Oh dear, the teacher thought. Were they sure the boy was already twelve? He did look a little small for that age. Maybe he'd snuck into the wrong class to be with his friend? He'd have to talk to the headmaster. At the very least his full name had to be registered by his parents.

"And you are?"

"Byakko."

"Don't tell me you don't know your last name either!"

"Uh, no, Sir." An embarrassed grin. This one was even cuter. "I mean, I do know my name. It's ... um ... West, Sir. Byakko West."

"Very well. You may sit down over there. Now class, please open your books ..."

"West?" Touda asked incredulously as soon as the humans stopped staring at them.

"Well, it was the first thing I could think of," Byakko defended himself. "And what else would Tsuzuki have registered me under? Why didn't we come prepared for this question anyway?"

"You're asking me?" Touda huffed. "How was I supposed to know we needed last names? I've never gone to school before, let alone a human one."

Byakko paled. "What do you mean you've never gone to school? You can read, can't you?"

"Well, yes. My mother taught me a little. And I had to learn in order to operate the computer. I'm not particularly good, though."

"Idiot." Byakko hissed. "You should have warned us. What if you can't keep up? We should have put you in first grade with Tenkou."

"Tsuzuki wanted only one agent in first grade." Touda pointed out. "And now shut up. This is interesting."

Byakko sighed. Whatever could be interesting about algebra was beyond him, but he decided to take this as a sign that Touda knew enough to follow the teacher's explanations. Thus he refrained from reminding his companion that they were here to find some missing souls and not to learn. Maybe some additional education would do the serpent shiki good in the long run. 


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Questions Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: a headmaster (Tsuzuki, Hisoka, Tatsumi, Watari, Touda, SohRyu, Kijin, Tenkou and Suzaku mentioned)  
Prompt: 076. Who?  
Word Count: 832.  
Rating: G Summary: A headmaster is trying to figure out what's going on in his school.  
Author's Notes: Another one from the school continuity. While Touda and Byakko are sitting in their first Math lesson, their new headmaster is working on their files. (Can you see the GouShoShin typing frantically behind the scenes?)

He was a diligent headmaster and kept his files in order at all times, which was why he'd decided to work through lunch break today. He'd be very hungry when he got home tonight, but with a little luck he'd have written all the files for his new staff members and students.

Luck didn't seem to be with him today, though, or maybe he just wasn't concentrating enough. The documents the newcomers had handed in in paper were all neatly stacked on his desk, but whenever he had to look something up on his computer it resulted in a frantic search. Quite often it seemed like the file wasn't there at all, but when he looked again just a few minutes later it was in plain sight as if it had always been there. If he hadn't known better he'd have thought somebody was adding the files while he was working.

He shook his head at his own thoughts. Clearly he was getting paranoid. No, he'd just been working on this too long and his thoughts kept drifting off causing him to overlook files. He had to concentrate more, if he wanted to finish this today.

Of course he didn't have to. If there really should be an inspection on the very next day, anybody would understand that the unexpected addition of 13 new students and 3 staff members on a single day would create an administrative backlog. Most other headmasters would probably have been content to just add the new staff members and leave the student files to be added one by one over the next week.

He sighed and started on the next file. A boy of twelve, first name Touda?

The staff members had been needed due to an unexpected death, one illness and a maternity leave, but where had all the new students come from? Why did they all have such strange names?

Well, Kurosaki Hisoka was a completely fine normal Japanese name, but all those other new students ... a mixture of Chinese, Japanese and occasionally English names that was just weird. If it had been just one student, he'd have shrugged it off as parents having an unusual taste in names, but as far as he could tell only three of the students, SohRyu, Kijin and Tenkou East, were related.

That was another weird thing. On a single day he'd added students named North, South, East and West to his files, all of them newly arrived from different parts of the country. It was too strange to be a coincidence, so who were those students really and who had sent them? Were they part of some weird sect that was starting a center of operations in his town? Was it a conspiracy? Some sort of witness protection program? But if so, why not choose common names that would attract less attention and spread the children across the country? Surely that was the first thing anyone planning to hide their identities would think of.

So maybe they were trying to attract attention to the new students, draw it away from somewhere else? The Kurosaki boy, perhaps? With his comparatively normal name and quiet manner he'd be likely to be overlooked next to people like that South girl. Despite having had only a few minutes to spare for her, she'd left him with quite a bad impression. She'd be trouble.

He did remember the quiet Kurosaki, though. The very fact that the other students were all so unusual made Kurosaki stand out.

What if it wasn't Kurosaki at all then? Maybe his arrival on the same day as the others was indeed a coincidence. Maybe they were trying to divert attention from one of the new staff members.

Tsuzuki Asato might be an undercover policeman here to investigate the death of his predecessor. There were two things speaking against that theory. If Tsuzuki was indeed a top notch policeman, he also had to be a world class actor. The man seemed so clumsy and naive, an open, friendly character, that kept no secrets and had no deep thoughts. The quiet, dignified Tatsumi seemed a better candidate for the role of detective. Or maybe it was that Watari fellow? That one seemed completely overqualified for his job.

If it really was a police operation there was no reason to worry. Indeed he'd feel a little safer considering the gruesome murder of his former employee. No matter what he might be forced to tell concerned parents, staff members and students, the headmaster was well aware that it had not been the first such crime committed in this town.

Yet, he couldn't believe that the police would use children as a distraction in a case involving ritual serial killings. It seemed much too dangerous.

He stared at the photo of the cute little boy wearing sunglasses, because of some eye-condition. "Who are you really, Touda?" and who were his friends? Who had sent them and why?

The picture gave no answers. 


	3. Chapter 3

Title: School Lunch Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko, Suzaku, SohRyu, Rikugou, Hisoka Prompt: 057. Lunch.  
Word Count: 172.  
Rating: G Summary: The shiki get to know the joys of high school lunches.  
Author's Notes: I'm not writing from personal experience unless you count two weeks of student exchange with France. Wherever this is based on my own experiences it is from the ten weeks of boarding school I had to do during my apprenticeship. Austrian secondary schools usually do not feed the students.

"Are they expecting us to starve?" Suzaku stared at her lunch tray in disgust.

"No," said Rikugou. "They're expecting us to eat that."

"They can't," Suzaku declared. "It's not edible. The potatoes are too hard and taste like flour." She hadn't tried anything else, yet.

"The overcooked vegetables make up for that," Byakko promised. "You don't even have to chew." He didn't comment on the taste, though.

"Oh, that's what the odd coloured mash is," SohRyu said glancing up from his magazine. "I was wondering." He hadn't tried to taste it to find out, though. In fact, he hadn't touched his food at all.

"I opted for the vegetarian food when I saw the mash," Hisoka told them pushing something unidentifiable around on his plate. "Can't figure out what it is, but there are meatballs in it."

"I don't see what your problem is," said Touda around a bite of half rare meat. "It's food." He'd have lied, if he'd claimed to like it, but he'd eaten worse things in his life. 


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Business Meeting Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki (SohRyu mentioned)  
Prompt: 021. Friends.  
Word Count: 810.  
Rating: G Summary: Forced to work closely together over some time Touda and Byakko seem to be making friends ... If only certain teenage problems weren't getting in the way.  
Author's Notes: This was the first plot hedgehog for the story the fic for Prompt 088 School was taken from as well. Tsuzuki holds a meeting with all the undercover agents in the school. It's meant for comparing notes and discussing results, but the things actually coming up in these meetings turn out to be of a very different nature ... ;)

Tsuzuki almost sighed out loud in relief when his last real class of the day was finally over. He loved children, but in the numbers they came in in schools their childish antics were just a little more than he could take. At least when subjected to them for eight hours a day for an entire week.

Sometimes he wondered whether it had really been necessary to go undercover in a high school, but then their investigation had yielded no other hints to follow up on. Not that the undercover work had brought any progress so far, despite the fact that they'd placed their agents not only among the staff, but also in every single year of students, almost always in pairs.

Well, at least this fake class, which was actually meant to give them a chance to exchange information, would give him a little break. It was good to be alone with his colleagues and Shiki at least two hours every week and not have to pretend to be an enthusiastic young teacher.

He walked into the classroom with a happy greeting, closed the door behind himself and glanced over the assembled 'students'.

Two empty seats and Touda and Byakko were sitting as far apart as possible while still sharing a desk, backs turned on each other demonstratively and staring at opposite walls.

What could have gone wrong? They'd been doing so well together that Tsuzuki had entertained serious hopes of a lasting friendship between them.

The empty seats were even more worrying. Of course his phoenix-shiki had been late before, but ...

"Do any of you have an idea where SohRyu is?" he asked the room at large.

The one most likely to know, just had to be Suzaku who had most of her classes with him, but was missing as well.

"Detention." Was that a hint of a giggle in Rikugo's tone? "For bossing around a teacher."

"But didn't he say that he has a class now?" Tsuzuki asked in exasperation. He needed SohRyu!

"I don't think Katsumoto Sensai really would have cared." Teimo offered. "He looked quite ... pissed off as the students say."

"Oh great." It just had to be the vice headmaster. SohRyu couldn't possibly start trouble with somebody Tsuzuki could charm into forgiving him. "Suzaku?"

"Called to the headmaster's office." Tenkou reported. "I think she beat up that boy again. Shiro, or Shin, or something like that."

Tsuzuki sighed and ran a hand through his hair which was already completely messed up anyway.

"And just what is the problem between you two?" he asked Touda and Byakko.

At first there was no response.

"Apparently it answers to 'Mariko'." Kijin supplied after a moment.

"Touda has a girlfriend." Byakko announced in a fake happy voice.

"Do not." Touda pouted.

He looked so cute as a twelve year old! In fact, he thought that all his Shiki looked adorable as teenagers, but neither SohRyu nor Suzaku had appreciated when Tsuzuki had mentioned it and he had a feeling Touda wouldn't either.

"You kissed her." Byakko insisted.

"She kissed me." Touda countered.

"So what's the difference?" Tsuzuki asked grinning and trying to remember Mariko. He'd had that class yesterday, but he'd seen so many students in the last two weeks.

"It was a simple peck on the cheek," Touda protested. "To thank me for helping her with her Math homework. If you occasionally did your homework, you could have helped her and she'd have kissed you instead."

"I've got better things to do than simple seventh grade Math." This time it was Byakko's turn to pout.

"Yes, simple." Touda smirked. "So simple that you're failing the class."

"Am not."

"You've failed the test we had last week and haven't handed in a single homework. And you're not doing much better in your other subjects either."

"You promised not to tell Tsuzuki about that test!"

"Well, you shouldn't have kept bugging me about Mariko," Touda snapped back. "Or maybe started studying. It's not like you could hide actually failing the class at the end of the year."

"We're not going to be here that long," Byakko declared.

"Oh, have you finally found a clue?" Tsuzuki asked hopefully.

"Um ... no," Byakko admitted.

"See?" grinned Touda. "Looks like we're going to be here for a long, long time."

"Maybe you should get a tutor, Byakko," Tsuzuki decided. "Who's doing best in your Math class?"

Byakko glared at Touda. "A certain guy who gets kisses from the prettiest girl in school for it and doesn't even want them."

"The secret weapon's called homework." Touda glared back.

"Get along, boys," Tsuzuki recommended, feeling oddly reminded of his last class this morning. Then he turned to the rest of the 'class'. "Anything else I should be aware of? Hints, suspicions, more problems?"

He was almost grateful that there as no answer. 


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Cubic Metres Are Besides The Point Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko (Suzaku and Tsuzuki mentioned)  
Prompt: 068. Lightening.  
Word Count: 614.  
Rating: G Summary: Byakko is finally doing his Math homework. Just somehow it doesn't quite turn out the way Touda's did.  
Author's Notes: Same continuity as the entry for school. I originally started this one for shapes, then decided it was better suited to friends and wrote the next one for shapes. Then I added them to the rest and found I already had one for friends. So lightening, because this will end up lightening the load for both of them.

"Byakko?" Touda asked in what he hoped sounded more annoyed than hesitant. "What are you doing?"

Byakko glanced up from his hurried writing. "What does it look like? Math homework."

"If that's the same problem I had for homework, one of us had better start over," Touda commented. "And I had straight As on all our tests so far."

Byakko frowned at two pages worth of calculations. "Did I mess up some 1 x 1 thing again?"

"How would I know." Touda shrugged. "I didn't actually check the numbers."

"So how do you know it's wrong?"

"Well, my homework didn't take up over two pages for a start."

"Your handwriting's smaller."

"Not by that much." Touda waved a neat half-page of homework at the tiger. "And there you added square metres to length metres and got kilograms as a result?"

"That's just a spelling error. They're supposed to be kilometres."

"No they're not. They're the sum of length metres and square metres, which can't be added in the first place. What you mean are cubic metres and you get those by multiplying, not adding."

"You do?" Byakko gave him that innocent kitten look which always caused Touda to want to either laugh out loud or scratch the cat's ears. "Well, no problem, I can fix that."

"Maybe so, but it's useless. Didn't you read the question? It says: 'What is the radius ...' Hence you're looking for a result in metres. Cubic metres are completely besides the point. And by the way, where did you find a depth for this? It's a flat shape."

"Er ..."

"You might want to start a geometry problem with the sketch next time," Touda advised. "Then you can visualise what you're looking for."

"I don't know how to draw the thing." Byakko admitted. "I don't even know how many corners it's supposed to have. I just ... Now my calculator went on strike. It says the number's too large." He hit his head against the desk twice, then looked up at Touda. "Help?"

Touda looked at the mess in Byakko's exercise book. It looked rather hopeless.

"Buy me lunch?" he asked in return.

"What? Tsuzuki gave you lunch money."

"Yes, but Suzaku took it. I couldn't very well fry her I front of the whole school."

"Suzaku steals lunch money?"

"She thinks it's part of the role she plays." Touda shrugged. "At least that's what she told Tsuzuki last time."

"Alright, you can have half of my lunch, if you do my Math homework for me."

"Oh no, I said I'd help you, not do it for you. I'll tell you how it's done, but you have to do it."

"But that'll take much longer."

"But you'll learn something."

"Some friend you are." Byakko pouted.

Touda froze. Friend? No, Byakko couldn't have said friend. Byakko hated him. All the other shiki hated him for his crimes and Byakko ... Well, everybody loved Byakko.

Byakko was innocent and sweet and playful. Cute and furry. And he purred.

Touda on the other hand was dark and rude and threatening. He was scaly and cold blooded. And he hissed.

Not a good basis for any sort of friendship, was it?

"Touda? Hey Touda, are you okay? Did I say something stupid? I didn't mean to, honest. I was just teasing. I'm grateful for your help, really. You know I hate Math, but you're right. I have to learn this before Tsuzuki finds out just how bad I really am," Byakko almost pleaded. "I'd never live it down."

"What? Oh no, just thinking." Touda said hastily. "We'd better get started. Like I already said you always have to begin with the sketch." 


	6. Chapter 6

Title: Tutoring Session Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko, Tsuzuki (SohRyu mentioned)  
Prompt: 041. Shapes.  
Word Count: 839.  
Rating: G Summary: Byakko is failing Math unless he can pass a last chance exam and he doesn't want the others to find out.  
Author's Notes: This one was a pure joy to write. A carefree and happy Touda fic for once. Just how did that happen?

"Okay, so if it has three corners, it's a triangle," Byakko said. "That much is pretty easy to remember. Four angles, a square."

"Not necessarily." Touda leaned back on Byakko's bed. Nice. The kitty sure knew how to make a standard human bed comfortable. He should have expected that, of course. Cat's loved it soft and warm. "A square has four corners, but also sides of identical length and all at 90° angles. Change the angles and you get a rhombus, shorten one side and it's a trapeze and ..."

"A trapeze belongs in the circus, not Math."

"Different sort of trapeze." Touda rolled his eyes even though it wasn't visible under his visor. "If height and length are different, but you still have all 90° angles, that's a rectangle, but there are also irregular shapes with four corners. Then it's simply a tetragon. You can always call a shape with four corners tetragon."

"Okay, then there's the hexagon, which has nothing to do with hexing."

"Stop! First comes the quintagon, then the hexagon," Touda interrupted once again. "And so on."

"How come everybody but me can count in Greek anyway?" Byakko complained.

"I can't count in Greek either. I just know it goes tetra-, quinta-, hexa- whatever, so if multicornered shapes are called polygons, a four cornered one has to be tetra-gon and a six cornered one hexa-gon."

"Oh well, at least that's all the gons."

"It isn't. It's just all the ones we learned this year. It goes on with heptagon and octogon and ..."

"Stop!" Byakko shouted covering his ears with his hands. "I don't want to hear it. I won't need that for the exam."

"Okay, what about other two dimensional shapes, then?" Touda quizzed.

"Two-diagonal? You mean the ones that have two middles you can fold them in?"

"No, not diagonal, di-men-sion-al. That means I'm talking about flat shapes," Touda snapped. "And diagonal means a line between two opposite corners. You know, what you get when you cross out a tetragon. The ones you're thinking of are mirror axes. In a square the diagonals are mirror axes, but not in a rhombus for example."

Byakko frowned. "But I already told you all the gons. A shape has to have at least three corners."

"No it doesn't." Touda insisted. "Think no corners at all. That's not a 'gon' then."

"Oh that. When it has no corners it's a circle."

"Not necessarily. A circle is perfectly round. What do you call it, if it's slightly longer? Like this." Touda drew a shape in the air with his fire.

"O-shaped?"

"Actually it's an ellipse, but calling it an oblong will do."

"Ob ... Hey, isn't obelisk an egg shaped stone in Europe?"

"Oblong, not obelisk. And not Obelix either."

"What's an obelix then?"

"Some maga-character-type thing from Europe," Touda explained. "Sort of egg-shaped with arms, legs and a tiny dog. Shouldn't come up in your Math exam, though. At least we never had him in class."

"Oh, have a rectangle." Byakko threw Kijin's pillow at Touda. "Where'd you learn about European manga anyway?"

"Shingo lent me one." Touda caught the pillow that would have sailed over him otherwise and lobbed it back at Byakko. "For comparison."

"Oh yeah." Byakko fended off the pillow with both hands pushing it back at Touda. "Since when are you so tight with Shingo?"

"Jealous?" This time the pillow hit him right in the face and Touda sat up secretly grabbing Byakko's pillow behind his back. "What of three dimensional shapes? Know any of those?"

"Er .. what's three ..." Byakko was cut off by two pillows flying at him in rapid succession. "Hey! ... Ah, but you are unarmed now!"

"Wrong answer!" Touda crowed and jumped off the bed to escape the next barrage. "How about ball, cylinder, cube, parallelepiped, pyramid? Know any of those?"

"No, but I've got you now!"

But Touda had managed to gain another pillow in time which he hit Byakko over the head with as the cat jumped him. Whether what followed was more pillow fight or wrestling match neither of them could have said, but it was accompanied by much squealing and laughter until a shower of feathers brought Touda back to himself.

"Damn it Byakko, that was SohRyu's," he realised.

Byakko froze, then spit out a few feathers.

"Just what are you two doing in here?" Tsuzuki stood in the door looking incredulously at the devastation.

"Homework." claimed Byakko.

"Studying." admitted Touda.

"Studying how to ruin pillows?" Tsuzuki glared at Touda.

"Actually, I'm the one who tore SohRyu's pillow," Byakko confessed hastily. "It was an accident."

"Studying Math," Touda explained. "For a test."

"This close to the end of term?"

Two small boy shaped shikigami nodded with complete conviction. The lie was probably obvious, but they'd stick to that story no matter what.

"Right," Tsuzuki sighed. "Well, you two are the ones who're going to have to explain it to SohRyu."

Okay, so where could one get a new pillow in under an hour? 


	7. Chapter 7

Title: T Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko, various OCs Prompt: 054. Air.  
Word Count: 946.  
Rating: G Summary: There are many ways to relieve boredom in Geography class.  
Author's Notes: Yes, it's another school-shiki scene. If I end up using it in the fic, I'll have to fix the tense, but I felt like writing present tense at the time.

Nobody in all the school can bore a class of students as well as Kirizuma Sensei the Geography teacher. It is amazing just how boring one can make a foreign country, strange continents, or even the river flowing by just outside the door.

Today she is killing all interest Touda and his classmates ever had in the geology of Japan. In an even drone she recites – no, he should be honest with himself: she reads out chemical formulas for different types of rock from the blue folder she always brings to class with her. He thinks it was Omiko who once theorised that without it Professor Kirizuma wouldn't remember when to say 'Good morning.'.

At the moment Omiko is sitting one row in front of him discussing anime with Tomoe. At least they aren't giggling as much as Himiko and her friends back in the last row. The sound is slightly annoying, not that the teacher seems to notice. At least she doesn't take any measures beyond her usual periodic shushing sounds. Touda is a little surprised that the students in the first row can doze in peace anyway.

Kochiro is drawing funnies again. He occasionally holds them up for Taro to see. That's how Touda knows.

Byakko appears to be meditating. Touda considers congratulating him on his performance after the lesson. His eyes haven't strayed from the teacher's face at all yet. If he couldn't hear his soft purring, even he would think that Byakko's being attentive.

He likes it when Byakko purrs. It is a calming, relaxing sound, similar to his own sleepy hissing, but without the unnerving effect on most humans.

Touda closes his Math book and slips it back into his backpack while Kirizuma turns another page in her folder. He wishes he had some more homework to do. Tomoe passes a note back from Taro. 'Promised to meet my sister after class. See you guys at lunch.'

He slips it under Byakko's nose who nods and crumples it up into a small ball that he snips back at him. Touda doesn't have a cat's compulsion to grab after small moving objects, but it promises a distraction so he pounces and flattens the ball.

Perhaps he hit it a bit too hard as it won't roll well anymore, so he flattens it out and folds it into a little aeroplane that he throws back at Byakko. He has miscalculated his throwing angle, or perhaps the shabby little plane is too unbalanced. It climbs higher then intended, then tumbles off to the side and towards the floor.

Byakko's mouth twitches the way it usually does when he has a sudden amusing thought and an unexpected draft catches the plane carrying it back onto the desk. Touda smiles his thanks and throws it again, his aim better now, but the draft returns throwing the plane back at him in a high loop.

He suppresses a laugh and tries a sideward arch and this time there's an actual gust of wind that carries it high over the class and into Kirizuma's face with a soft "splat". From there it falls right onto the blue folder.

"What? Who was that?" Kirizuma Sensei drones in what passes for her stern tone and makes to pick it up, but another gust of wind blows the little plane off her desk and it glides under Ryo's desk.

Kirizuma gets up and walks after it watched attentively by the entire class for perhaps the first time this year. Byakko waits until she has bent down and crawled halfway under the table before he calls up another gust that sends the plane skidding across the floor until it collides with Tomoe's bookbag.

The teacher hits her head as she jumps up to go after it causing the class to laugh out loud. She glares at them, then glances towards the closed windows.

"Alright!" she demands. "A six-hundred word essay as punishment for the entire class unless this stops right now."

Well, well, who knew Kirizuma had it in her! She goes after the plane again, but it is blown past her and under her own desk this time.

"That's it!" she declares. "Six hundred words on the main geological ..."

"But Kirizuma Sensei!" Touda speaks up all wide eyed innocence. "We aren't even doing anything."

"That's right," confirms Kochiro. "It's the wind blowing the bit of paper about."

"No, it's you doing this." Kirizuma insists. "All the windows are closed and it moves whenever I bend to pick it up."

"But how would we do that?" Byakko asks her. "Are you suggesting there's some bakemono among us who can bend the air to their will?"

They stare at her. Thirty-two cute young faces with wide innocent eyes. Akira slowly extends one leg under the desk and steps on the plane. He pulls it in, picks it up and hands it to the teacher.

Kirizuma unfolds the dirty and crumpled paper.

"Promised to meet my sister after class. See you guys at lunch. T" she reads out.

Her eyes flash from Touda, to Tomoe, to Taro, Tochiko, Timo ... She rarely gives written homework and almost never collects it, so she doesn't know their handwriting well.

"Oh well, it does seem to be just an old piece of paper," she decides and returns to her desk. A glance into her folder. "Back to the vegetation zones of Australia."

As everybody else stares at her in surprise Byakko almost falls off his chair. Touda looks at him quizzically.

"I ..." he giggles. "Blew over a few pages in her folder. I thought she'd notice."

But Kirizuma Sensei drones on about eucalyptus forests. 


	8. Chapter 8

Title: Study Session Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko Prompt: 043. Square.  
Word Count: 323.  
Rating: G Summary: Byakko's tired of geometry.  
Author's Notes: I wavered between the two possible interpretations of square for a while, which is probably why you get both.

"Okay, so what about this shape?" Touda shoved yet another piece of paper under Byakko's nose.

"Well, it has four corners," the tiger commented. He'd found that stating the obvious often bought time with teachers. "Seems rather simple."

"Yes, but what's it called?" Touda wasn't a teacher and often a lot harder to please.

Byakko tried to remember, but he suspected that he'd slept through that lesson. A thing with three corners was a triangle, so maybe ...

"Quadrangle?"

Touda sighed, so probably not.

"Well, you could probably get away with calling it a rectangle as long as you don't have its exact measurements," the serpent offered. "If I tell you that it has four 90° angles and all its sides are the same length, though, what do you call it then?"

"Boring rectangle?" Not that Byakko actually believed that, nor had he ever come across a geometric form or anything else that had a connection with studying that he didn't find boring.

"Square," Touda supplied. "And it's not boring. It's just easy. Trust me, you'll like this one."

Byakko couldn't imagine liking anything about Math.

"Squares belong outside in the streets."

Touda glared at him. "Fine, lets imagine that this is a drawing of such a square and you want to pave it."

Byakko did not want to pave anything. It sounded like work and they'd been studying for over an hour now. Wasn't it time for a break?

"Is there an ice-cream stand in that square?" he asked Touda. "Because, if I'm supposed to pave it, I need to see the real thing first. A drawing just won't do."

"What's that got to do with an ice-cream stand?"

"Well, if there's an ice-cream stand I'll have to bring money, because it's hot and when we get there we'll want ice-cream to cool us."

Touda sighed again. "Alright," he gave in. "Lets go for ice cream."

Sometimes studying with Touda was great. 


	9. Chapter 9

Title: I Don't Get It Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko Prompt: 044. Circle.  
Word Count: 100.  
Rating: G Summary: A circular drabble about circles.  
Author's Notes: This is completely pointless, but I suppose you could call it art.

"I don't get it," Byakko stated.

"You weren't listening to the teacher," Touda returned. "Again."

"I wouldn't have gotten it, if I had been."

"How do you know? You didn't even try."

"Because I knew it didn't make sense when I saw it. It's completely weird."

"It's a circle."

"Precisely. It doesn't have either corners or straight lines, so how am I supposed to calculate anything?"

"It has a radius."

"What's that?"

"A straight line from its center to any random point of the circle."

"How do you know that?"

"The teacher said so."

"I don't get it," Byakko stated. 


	10. Chapter 10

Title: Report Cards Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko, Tsuzuki, Rikugou (Suzaku, Tenkou and Kijin)  
Prompt: 065. Passing.  
Word Count: 559.  
Rating: G Summary: Byakko's grades aren't all that good and all the others seem to have done so well .  
Author's Notes: Another one of my shiki in school scenes, but I don't think this will make it into the fic, if I ever write it. At least not unchanged.

"Do you think Tsuzuki will look at our grades?" Byakko fidgeted.

"I thought you passed Math?" Touda asked surprised at the tiger's nervous behaviour. "Did you fail anything else?"

"Yes ... no ... I ... I passed, but just barely." he frowned at his report card. "It's not pretty."

"Our grades don't matter," Touda reminded him. "We just have to pass to keep an even distribution among all age groups."

"Then you don't think Tsuzuki will ask to see them?" Byakko looked hopeful.

"I don't know." Touda shrugged.

He couldn't quite tell Byakko that he secretly hoped that their master would indeed look at their grades and see how well he'd done. He'd worked hard all year thinking that with his limited prior education he'd have trouble keeping up. It had come as a complete surprise when the teacher had told him that he was second best of his year and he really wanted to show it off.

Byakko on the other hand had paid very little attention to school work until it had become obvious that they'd have to continue their undercover operation into the next school year.

They arrived home a few minutes later to find Tsuzuki praising Tenkou and Kijin for their grades. Apparently those two had done great as well.

Byakko stepped behind Touda and tried to disappear.

Rikugou's grades received a bemused shake of the head.

"What is your problem with Sports class?" Tsuzuki asked the shiki.

"I don't like it." Rikugou declared unbothered. "There have been at least fifteen injuries in that class this year, from bloody noses, to broken bones. I refuse to risk my health and our mission for a 'friendly' ball game."

Tsuzuki couldn't argue with that. He'd been the one to take Suzuaku to the hospital after her attempt to catch a baseball with her bare hand, after all.

Touda quietly held out his hand behind him and with a sigh Byakko handed over his report card. He'd have to trust the serpent to slip it in unobtrusively.

And so Touda did. While everybody else was still laughing and teasing Rikugou he sidled up to the table and slipped their sheets half under the rest. His own on top covering Byakko's entirely.

Tsuzuki however noticed anyway and picked them out right away.

"Hey Rikugou!" the shinigami called out. "Touda beat your average."

"That's because of Sports." Rikugou looked slightly affronted.

"Not entirely. He also beat you in Science."

Everybody was staring their way now. Byakko tried to fade into the wall. Too bad he wasn't born a chameleon shiki.

"So." Touda shrugged. "I like Science. It's all logic and a little math. I've always been good with numbers. You know that."

"Well, fifth grade is easy." Rikugou sniffed. "Of course you got great grades there. It's not like you had to work for it."

Tsuzuki moved Touda's report card to the back of the pile revealing Byakko's. He glanced over it, then looked to the tiger.

"Uh, I passed," Byakko commented.

"You never said you expected anything more," Touda added. "We're here to protect the students and find a demon, not to learn anything. Byakko actually did most of the work for our team."

Tsuzuki grinned. "My sweet, lazy tiger," he laughed and hugged Byakko.

'And sweet, clever serpent.' Byakko thought, but he didn't dare hug Touda for his support. 


	11. Chapter 11

Title: A Desperate Plea Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda's mother and her master (Touda is mentioned)  
Prompt: 001. Beginnings.  
Word Count: 336.  
Rating: PG-13 for hints of noncon.  
Summary: Raising a slave takes a lot longer than buying one and can get more expensive as well.  
Author's Notes: Yes, he is a particularly unpleasant shiki. He sees his slaves as property, not people. Most of Tsuzuki's shiki own slaves as well, but would never treat them like this.

"Please Master," the young slave-woman clutched at the hem of his cloak.

He would have torn it out of her grip, but it might damage the fabric and she was pretty. It amused him to see her beg.

"He will be your faithful servant. I'll teach him to work hard. He'll grow up strong and willing to do hard labour. Not like me. I'm just a weak girl, but he is a boy."

"I have enough servants, little slut," he sneered at her. "And enough money to buy a grown man, if I had the need. Why should I waste my money on raising a new-born? It'll be years before he can earn his keep."

"But he will be more loyal than a stranger raised in a different house. Your household will be his childhood home," she pleaded. "I beg you, Master. Don't sell my son! I'll do anything."

"Really anything?"

Perhaps they could strike a deal. He could have her anytime he liked, of course, but it would be more pleasant, if he could without her pleading and crying. It almost made him feel as if she didn't find him attractive.

"Yes Master, whatever you ask of me. I will do it gladly, if only you'll keep my child."

He grinned. "Very well then, I'll consider it as long as you are true to your word and cause me no trouble. What do you call your whelp again?"

"Touda, my Lord." She bit her lip nervously. "In honour of his father's people."

"A little preposterous, is it not?" he laughed. "To use a sky serpent's name for a little worm like this."

"I felt that some connection to his father's people was called for. If you wish for a change of name, though, he is most certainly young enough to ..."

"No," he grinned. "No, Touda will be fine."

It would be a pleasure to rub it in the exiled prince's face that he owned his bastard. Sky serpents, if he remembered correctly, despised slaves. 


	12. Chapter 12

Title: Protector Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda Prompt: 097. Writer's Choice.  
Word Count: 459.  
Rating: PG.  
Summary: In his childhood little Touda had at least one friend who could provide protection.  
Author's Notes: Long ago in one of my ficlets Touda mentioned a certain friend from his childhood and I promised that I might someday tell more about that friendship. Here it is.

"When I catch that little rat," the master roared somewhere outside. "I'll rip him into tiny shreds!"

Touda pressed himself tightly against the stable wall. If he was found now it was quite possible that the master would make true his threat. He always was most violent when he was too drunk to stand straight. Once the master passed out he'd be safe, though. He wouldn't even remember the bowl Touda had broken when he woke up tomorrow afternoon.

The other servants knew that as well, of course and weren't too thorough in their search. Still there was the danger of being grabbed and dragged before the master should one of the stable-hands see him in here.

Kaga bent his huge black head, gentle lips ghosted over Touda's cheek as the stallion checked over the small shiki boy that cowered in his box. Maybe the danger wasn't that big after all.

Whoever wanted to drag him out of here would have to slip past the horse first and the stable-hands knew better than the rest just how dangerous Kaga was. One of them was still in the hospital in town after their attempt to capture the horse last week.

The master had originally bought the impressive black to ride himself, but had been unable to mount the horse after the first time. Touda hadn't seen that first ride, but he suspected he knew exactly what had happened. The master had a way of going for the whip whenever things didn't go his way that didn't encourage much love from slaves or horses.

When the servants ordered to break the horse had failed as well the master had brought in a number of experts from 'outside' which had always been a good show, but had resulted only in property damage and hospital bills. In the end the master had given up the idea of riding Kaga and kept him only for breeding.

Few people dared to go near the horse and it was well known that he let nobody touch him. Sometimes Touda daydreamed of climbing onto the black's back and just riding off into the sunset, start a new life somewhere far away.

He caressed the silky soft skin around the horse's nostrils.

"You are the best horse in the world," he whispered lovingly. "Absolutely perfect."

Kage blew a stream of hot air at his face and swished his wild black tail. He needed brushing, but for that Touda would have to leave the box and get a brush and the master was still shouting outside. He'd get the brush in the morning when there was no more danger in being seen. For now he curled up in the back corner to sleep in the straw. 


	13. Chapter 13

Title: Endless Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki Prompt: 010. Years.  
Word Count: 258.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Touda in his prison.  
Author's Notes: Nothing much to say about this. It's a short one, but I like it. Suits my mood lately.

Locked up deep within Tenkuu the delivery of meals was the only way Touda had to tell time. Daylight didn't reach down here, nor did he ever get out and his natural sleeping rhythm had been completely messed up by the darkness and boredom long ago.

Food was brought to him at regular intervals, tough. Or so Touda assumed. It didn't matter anyway. He'd stopped counting, or perhaps he never had started. He didn't remember anymore.

After all, what was there to wait for? He would be down here for all eternity. That was his sentence. Why should he care whether he' d been chained to the wall in the dark for days, or weeks, or years, or perhaps centuries?

He'd have guessed years, if you asked him, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He would remain here forever. In his mind his punishment was eternal. It had no end and no beginning. What had been before had become distant as a dream.

Once again the door opened as it had done countless times. He turned his face away and closed his eyes to protect them from the sudden light. There'd be steps and then someone would put a plate on the floor. He didn't know the guard's face or voice, had never seen or heard them. Didn't even know whether there was a regular guard or another every day. The guard never spoke and his eyes could no longer bare the light.

"Touda?" a gentle voice asked, sounding almost awed. "Hello, Touda. My name is Tsuzuki Asato." 


	14. Chapter 14

Title: Tsuzuki's Offer Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda Prompt: 077. What?  
Word Count: 249.  
Rating: G Summary: Touda wonders just what it is Tsuzuki is offering him.  
Author's Notes: This started out as Touda's thoughts as he follows Tsuzuki back into the world of the other shiki after he's just been released. Maybe it still is, or maybe this is a little before that or a little later.

Tsuzuki. The shinigami's name was Tsuzuki and he'd claimed Touda the way a master owns a slave. No test, no opportunity to go back on his promise to serve him should Tsuzuki prove unworthy. Yet, Touda had agreed readily, had even accepted the control device they'd installed in his brain, a device that would leave him more completely at Tsuzuki's mercy than any slave was at his master's. Complete control in exchange for ... what exactly? It definitely wasn't freedom and yet he wanted it more than anything else in the world.

To get him out of his prison was what Tsuzuki had said he'd do, out of that eternal unchanging darkness, away from the grey stone wall with its rough surface and the cracks that looked like an upside down tree, or a fishing net or maybe a map of a nonexistent city.

He'd spent hours staring at that map, imagining the city and the people in it and making up stories about them until even the stories in his own head had grown boring and the imaginary people had started to all seem the same.

He'd almost gone crazy from all the sameness in there, or maybe he had and just didn't realise it. Maybe this Tsuzuki was just another construct of his mind, but at least he wasn't the same. He offered him something new, an end to the sameness and whether it was madness or salvation from madness Touda embraced it with all his heart. 


	15. Chapter 15

Title: A matter of Perspective Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda (Tsuzuki is mentioned)  
Prompt: 016. Purple.  
Word Count: 191.  
Rating: G Summary: Touda reflects about his looks and Tsuzuki.  
Author's Notes: Nothing much to say about this. First post, so I hope I'm doing this right.

Touda hated the colour purple.

How had it come that he had purple hair anyway? How was that possible when his serpent form was a beautiful, perfect black? Black as befitted a hellfire shiki.

He loved his animal form, loved its rough black scales, its powerful muscles, its size and agility. As a serpent he was all around deadly and terrifying.

No matter that Tsuzuki adamantly declared him to look cute. He most definitely did not. Every shiki he'd ever met would confirm this. Everybody else other than Tsuzuki probably would as well. It was only his master that had ever called his serpent form cute and him Touda could forgive that.

In fact Touda would forgive Tsuzuki anything. He absolutely loved his master.

He loved that his master had freed him from his cell. Loved that he'd returned his powers to him, even if they were slightly muted. He loved how deceptively fragile and helpless Tsuzuki looked. He loved his black hair, his smile, his utter humanness.

And he especially loved Tsuzuki's purple eyes, that one trait that proved that he wasn't human after all.

Touda loved the colour purple. 


	16. Chapter 16

Title: Reindeer Don't Fly Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki Prompt: 092. Christmas.  
Word Count: 468.  
Rating: G Summary: Tsuzuki tries to explain Christmas, but hey, it's part of a foreign culture.  
Author's Notes: You know, those holiday fics are going to be murder with these characters. I mean, what in the world am I going to do with Thanksgiving? It's celebrated only in the USA so how are these characters with Japanese/Chinese background even going to get in contact with it? Ah well, at least the connection between Touda and the New Year is obvious.

Reindeer Don't Fly

"What?" Touda stared at the over decorated tree as if he'd never seen one before.

"A Christmas tree!" Tsuzuki exclaimed happily. "Isn't it pretty? Oh, I love all those lights they have at Christmas nowadays."

"Christmas tree?" Touda repeated. "What's a Christmas tree?"

"Well, a tree just like this one." Tsuzuki beamed at him. "You know, all decorated for Christmas."

Touda sighed. Sometimes Tsuzuki's explanations made no sense at all to him.

"What's Christmas?" he tried again.

"What ... You don't know what Christmas is?" Tsuzuki gaped.

"No," said Touda a little sulkily.

"Well, to be honest, I don't know all that exactly either." Tsuzuki admitted. "It's a big Christian holiday. Christian families put up a tree in their homes, decorate it and light lots of candles. Then they decorate their houses and the streets with light chains and stars and during the night Santa Claus brings them gifts and puts them under the tree."

"Santa Claus," Touda stated dryly. "Really?"

"He's a fat man in a red coat who lives on the north pole and rides a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer."

"Now listen, Tsuzuki," Touda started patiently. "I know you can fly and I can fly and we both know flying tigers and dragons and a few other things, but those are shiki. They live in GenSouKai, not on the north pole and I've never seen a single reindeer shiki. Reindeer do not fly and they don't pull sleighs from the north pole to Kyoto. That's a fact."

"Oh, and he comes through the chimney!" Tsuzuki exclaimed triumphantly.

"A fat man with a sleigh and two flying reindeer from the north pole comes through a chimney in Kyoto?" Touda looked like he was beginning to worry about Tsuzuki's sanity.

"Yes!" Tsuzuki nodded. "At least that's what they tell their children. In truth they probably just put the gifts there themselves while the children are asleep."

"What for?"

"Well, to make each other happy." Tsuzuki shrugged. "Why else exchange gifts."

"That's stupid."

"I think it's rather sweet." Tsuzuki insisted. "Doesn't it make you happy when you get lots of gifts?"

Touda shrugged. "I never get any gifts. Now, wasn't there a demon we're supposed to be looking for?"

Tsuzuki sighed. Sometimes his shiki were simply weird and that despite having known them for seventy years. Someday he'd get Touda a special gift to show him what it felt like. Right now was probably not a good idea, though. Christmas belonged neither in his own culture, nor in Touda's. It simply wouldn't make any sense to celebrate a holiday neither of them understood.

Maybe there was something else they could celebrate, though? He wondered briefly whether shikigami had birthdays. He ought to ask Genbu about that sometime. If anybody knew Touda's birthday, it had to be old Genbu. 


	17. Chapter 17

Title: A Small Bit Of Information Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Tsuzuki, Rikugou (Touda mentioned)  
Prompt: 091. Birthday.  
Word Count: 540.  
Rating: G Summary: Tsuzuki wants a small bit of information, but then it is private and he doesn't want to be a bother and ... Well, he didn't expect to run into this difficulty.  
Author's Notes: You can consider this one a sequel of sorts to the Christmas one, but it also works fine on its own.

"Rikugou?" Tsuzuki asked suddenly after sitting and watching the shiki work for almost ten minutes.

"Yes, Master?"

"Don't call me that," Tsuzuki shot back out of habit.

"It is your proper title." Another automatic answer.

"Genbu says you have the personal records of all of GenSouKai's shiki in here," Tsuzuki stated.

"In this room? No, they'd never fit." Rikugou put down his quill. "I keep only the really important ones here. The rest are stored in the basement, some even in Tenku."

"Oh." Tsuzuki looked disappointed.

"Were you looking for anything in particular?" Rikugou offered. "I can send someone for the file, if I don't have it on hand."

Tsuzuki struggled with himself. Apparently he was embarrassed by his question. "It's not that important, just something that I'd like to know, but don't have to. I don't want to be a bother."

Rikugou resisted the urge to roll his main pair of eyes. "Well, whose file do you want? Maybe it is here after all."

"Touda," Tsuzuki admitted softly.

Rikugou sighed. "Third cupboard on the right. The court files are in the bottom two drawers, professional history and military file in the third and medical history in the fourth."

Tsuzuki blinked. "So where's the best place to look for his birth date?"

"Well, that'd be in ..." Rikugou stopped and frowned for a moment. "I don't have that. We only keep records on the shiki in our city. Touda's mother was a simple servant from a very backward region. I doubt they kept proper birth records of common household personnel."

"But I thought Touda is a divine commander?"

"Due to his powers, yes. Unlike the protectors ordinary divine commanders don't have to be of noble descent. When it was discovered how powerful Touda was SohRyu called him to the city to train him. That's where the records start. That first file should be in the fourth drawer."

"But don't you celebrate his birthday?" Tsuzuki pleaded. "Doesn't anybody care?"

Rikugou shrugged. "I don't think we ever have. Touda is a very private person. I suppose his closest friends would know, but I don't know who they are. What did you want to do with the information anyway?"

Tsuzuki sighed. "I just wanted to give him a birthday gift. Something to demonstrate how much I appreciate him. ... I think he's a bit hurt, because I don't call on him very often, but I just can't risk using hellfire unless it's absolutely necessary. A birthday gift sounded like a good way to demonstrate my friendship."

Rikugou thought for a moment. Sometimes Tsuzuki really worried too much about his shiki's feelings, but then Touda did tend to feel left out, even when it was often his own withdrawal from the group that caused it.

"If it's about your relationship with Touda, wouldn't it be more meaningful to celebrate the anniversary of the day you first met? He did regain his freedom on that day, so it could be considered a second birthday, too."

Tsuzuki beamed and tackled Rikugou in a fierce hug. "Oh, thank you, Rikugou! What a wonderful idea! You're the best!"

He was a terribly undignified master and had no sense of protocol whatsoever, but you just couldn't help loving him. 


	18. Chapter 18

Title: Return To Daylight Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda Prompt: 073. Light.  
Word Count: 319.  
Rating: G Summary: Why Touda is grateful for his visor.  
Author's Notes: No, the visor is not a good thing for Touda, but these are just Touda's thoughts not facts.

Touda lay in the sun next to a decorative fountain in one of the larger courtyards of Tenku. It was a still slightly fresh spring morning, but the spot he'd chosen to sun himself in was well lit and he could already feel his blood moving a little faster. The light glistened and blinked as the water danced in the fountain and Touda once again felt secretly grateful for the visor that separated and protected him from the world.

Before his imprisonment he'd loved light. He was a fire shiki and a serpent after all and even though his own fire was black he'd always been attached to sunlight and fire. He'd loved to watch the flames leap in the fireplace, to see the sun rise and set ... He still did.

Only now he was also afraid of it. That first time Tsuzuki had led him out of Tenku's depths and the daylight had hit his eyes after living in almost complete darkness for centuries had hurt so much.

He thought he'd screamed though all he remembered for sure was the pain and the tears it had driven into his eyes. Even when he'd closed them tightly the light had still burned its way through his lids bright and painful. That and Tsuzuki's worried questions.

Somebody had lent him black glasses back then and they'd covered up the sides somehow and soon after that he'd received the control device with the visor.

It had just been a little daylight shining in through a small window in one of the lower level corridors on the lower levels of Tenku, but it had been incredibly painful. Touda doubted that he'd be able to sunbathe without the visor, or sit by a fireplace, or look at the fountain in the light. He would never see daylight directly again, but then he wouldn't be able to bare it, if he were allowed. 


	19. Chapter 19

Title: Changed Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda Prompt: 025. Strangers.  
Word Count: 237.  
Rating: G Summary: It isn't really the ones he's never met before.  
Author's Notes: What would it feel like to be treated as an enemy by your former friends? At least I assume that Touda and the other divine commanders once were friends.

Touda spent the first few weeks after his release from his prison watching his fellow commanders, Tsuzuki's other shikigami.

He'd known most of them before the war, had known them well, would have called all of them friends once, though he'd been closer to some than others. Only the children were new to the group, born from the excess power the Golden Emperor had lent SohRyu in the final battle.

He got on well enough with Kijin and Tenkou. It was the others that were hard to get used to. He'd thought that he knew them, but now they were perfect strangers. He couldn't predict their reactions to anything and it made him very nervous.

Was it really possible that he'd forgotten so much about them in his time in the dark? Did people really change this much over the course of a few centuries and did he only notice it now, because he hadn't been there to watch them slowly change?

Or was it the war that had changed them? Had the terrible experiences affected them so much it had changed their personalities?

Then again, and that was what he feared most, maybe they hadn't changed at all. Maybe they had always been like this and he could only see their true selves now. Maybe he was the one changed, in their eyes and deep inside, for he could never feel like one of them again. 


	20. Chapter 20

Title: Rikugou Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda (Tsuzuki, SohRy, Bykko, Suzaku, Genbu and of course Rikugou mentioned)  
Prompt: 017. Brown.  
Word Count: 538.  
Rating: G Summary: The relationship between Rikugou and Touda.  
Author's Notes: Somehow I don't think Rikugou distrusts Touda as much as the rest. So why can't Rikugou be Touda's friend among his fellow shikigami?

Tsuzuki had mentioned once that he associated the colour brown with autumn. SohRyu had answered that to the shikigami it was the colour of earth and it was true that most earth type shiki favoured it.

As far as Touda was concerned however brown was Rikugou's colour.

People considered it dull and ugly. It didn't shine like the emperor's gold, or Suzaku's red or even SohRyu's blue. It wasn't pure like Byakko's white or threatening like Touda's own black. Brown was drab, no doubt about it.

It was pure understatement. And that was what Rikugou was all about.

Among all the colourful, boastful commanders Rikugou tended to blend in, become just another face in the crowd, be overlooked. Mild-mannered and calm he was usually mistaken for harmless.

Outside of a direct confrontation with SohRyu in a rage, Rikugou was the one Touda feared the most. That was probably ironic, he thought, as Rikugou was perhaps the most tolerant of his behaviour. At times one could almost say that he treated him kindly.

Yet, Touda knew that though he was often overlooked, Rikugou himself missed nothing. Every tiny detail, every casual little word dropped in a conversation was filed away in his mind, analysed, combined with prior information that might be centuries old and stored for later reference.

Rikugou missed nothing, forgot nothing and was rarely wrong.

The results he drew from his collection of little details were frighteningly accurate and surprising. He found connections between things no other would have dreamed of.

Genbu with all his experience and knowledge was much less frightening.

Genbu also didn't dare challenge SohRyu.

Rikugou, outwardly little more than Genbu's secretary, did. In a calm, unassuming voice he'd tell SohRyu logically, why he was wrong or even unfit to lead others, especially an entire realm.

SohRyu'd spit water and rage at him and Rikugou would just calmly stand there and wait for the temper tantrum to pass. It drove SohRyu out of his mind and Rikugou knew it.

The thing Rikugou understood best was other people, their thoughts and feelings and that was what scared Touda. He didn't want to be understood. His feelings were his weak spot, carefully hidden and guarded, his thoughts private property. He'd share his thoughts voluntarily from time to time, but never his feelings. He rather wished Rikugou wouldn't pry.

But then he also understood that Rikugou didn't actually pry. His ability to analyse another shiki's actions was the kind of talent that one just couldn't control. As difficult as collecting so many tiny bits of data and their logical analysis seemed to the average mind, Rikugou just couldn't help it. It was the way his mind worked, as automatic as breathing.

The only way to avoid it was by avoiding Rikugou, and avoid Rikugou was what Touda did. Unfortunately he was quite aware that a shiki like Rikugou would never miss something as obvious as the fact that Touda was avoiding him and it wasn't even a challenge to a mind like his to conclude that he was avoiding him, because he feared him. Knowing Rikugou he'd probably consider it obvious why Touda feared him. He'd understand.

Rikugou understood everything, even that Touda hated being understood. 


	21. Chapter 21

Title: Chinese New Year – Dragon Style Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki (SohRyu mentioned)  
Prompt: 095. New Year.  
Word Count: 906.  
Rating: G Summary: Celebrations are noisy, social affairs. Touda likes neither, but still his favourite celebration is the noisiest of them all.  
Author's Notes: It just had to be the Chinese New Year. What with Touda's animal form and all ...

Chinese New Year – Dragon Style

There was chaos on the streets of GenSouKai. Shouting and chanting mixed into deafening noise as people danced about in colourful festive clothes, children hopping around excitedly darting unexpectedly through the crowds wherever they shifted to make some room.

And the crowds were constantly shifting, everybody being always in motion causing the festive decorations and gowns to turn into a sea of moving patches of colour in the eye of any watchers. But Touda wasn't watching and he sincerely hoped that Tsuzuki wasn't fool enough to be down there either.

Maybe he should have warned his master. Tsuzuki was from Japan, after all, where they celebrated the New Year on December 31st. He hadn't even known that the real New Year was today and had come to visit purely by coincidence. Who knew what else they didn't know there!

Touda's first New Years celebration in GenSouKai had been a disaster. He'd known that the celebrations were loud and colourful of course. Back at home it had always been an unpleasant affair when the whole village was celebrating, but nothing there could have prepared him for the thousands of people that overcrowded the streets of the capital during the holidays. He'd been jostled shoved and actually trampled over on one occasion until he'd finally managed to flee onto a roof where he'd sat in misery with his ears ringing. Touda did not like crowds. Or noise.

For several years after that he'd fled the city entirely the moment the first festival preparations had begun.

And then one day he'd taken refuge in a nice quiet cave in the middle of nowhere and ran into a lost shiki-boy. The foolish little thing had been trying out his owl form, learning how to fly and forgotten to remember which direction he'd gone.

He hadn't known the name of his village either and getting a useful description out of the child had taken almost an hour of questioning. After all what kind of landmark was the name of the local baker or the fact that there was a cherry tree in the neighbour's garden? Clearly the little idiot didn't get out much.

Finally though the boy had remembered a bridge next to a waterfall which was a lot more distinctive and they'd set off for the kid's home.

They were only just out of sight of the cave, though, when the stupid child started complaining that he couldn't go on. His wings were hurting, he was exhausted, hungry ...

To make a long story short, Touda had run out of patience and carried the brat home on his back.

Only to be pressured by a suddenly wide awake owl-boy and his entire family to participate in the village's New Years celebration.

"I don't celebrate the New Year." Touda had grumbled.

"But why?" the little boy had asked wide eyed. "It's your celebration."

"Mine?" Touda had said raising an eyebrow incredulously.

"Well, you are a serpent-dragon, aren't you?"

"I'm a sky serpent, yes." Touda confirmed. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"Well, aren't serpent-dragons supposed to dance to bring people luck for the new year?" the boy had insisted. "You're shirking your duty."

"Huh? What?"

And then the idiot child had dragged him into the town square where a bunch of villagers were dancing in a dragon costume and Touda had had to admit that this looked a lot more like him than SohRyu.

"Please!" the boy had begged. "Dance with them. I've always wanted to see a real dragon dance."

"Sky serpents don't dance on the ground." Touda had snorted. "That's why we're called Sky serpents."

"Then dance in the sky." the boy had said. "Show me how it's done."

And Touda had danced for the boy who maybe, just maybe, wasn't such an idiot after all, because that night Touda had realised that he did indeed love to dance and maybe the New Year was indeed his celebration, made for him to dance.

High in the sky above GenSouKai where he twisted and turned in figures no limbed creature would ever dream of he was free. Up here he was all alone with as much space as he wanted and the noise of the people below was a faint sound in the distance. He wasn't sure what they thought of his dance down there. In fact, he wasn't even sure they'd noticed he was up here, but then the last thing he wanted was for anybody to spoil his fun by coming up to join him.

Many hours later when the noise was beginning to die down as the people tired somebody did fly up to meet him, but it was only Tsuzuki and the sky was big enough for two after all, Touda decided.

"Touda, old friend!" Tsuzuki slung his arms around him to stabilise his slightly wobbly flight path and hugged him tightly.

Too much rice-wine, Touda diagnosed and stopped twisting before Tuzuki could accidentally slip off or get sick from all the motion.

"Have you been up here the whole time?" Tsuzuki asked with a slightly slurry voice. "You should have come down there. We had so much fun."

Touda shook his head. "I need room to dance."

"Dance?"

"Yes, I'm their dragon," he explained inclining his head towards the city below.

"You're a serpent," Tsuzuki stated.

"Not on the New Year," Touda said with a small grin. "Today I'm a dragon." 


	22. Chapter 22

Title: Burned Stones Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki Prompt: 046. Star.  
Word Count: 753.  
Rating: G Summary: Some things take time.  
Author's Notes: This might be the most edited piece I've ever written. The first draft consisted only of the first half of the story, the second had both, then I realised I needed to change the time settings and finally I fiddled with the POV a little.

"A rock?" Touda stared at his new master's treasure in confusion.

"Well yes, it's a rock," Tsuzuki admitted. "But a very special rock."

It didn't look special to Touda. It looked like a rock that had been melted by his fire and then cooled down again. A somehow liquid look with no sharp edges. In nature you got rounded rocks in riverbeds where the flow of the water shaped them. Maybe this was an unusual river shaped rock?

He hoped it was, at least. For some reason he didn't like the idea of Tsuzuki taking souvenirs from places he'd burned. It made him uneasy, though he couldn't have said why.

"It's a fallen star," Tsuzuki explained.

Touda looked up at the sky. "Stars don't fall and they don't look like stones. They're huge balls of burning gas."

Too late he remembered that one shouldn't contradict one's master. It had been too long since he'd last had one and Tsuzuki was still too new. He wondered whether he'd be sent back to his cell right away.

But Tsuzuki only sighed. "Okay, it's a meteor," he admitted. "People just call them fallen stars, because it's more poetic."

Touda shook his head. "They aren't stars. They're just bits of stone. Burned stone."

He didn't know why it bothered him so much. Maybe it had something to do with the similarity with the burned stones he himself produced, but that didn't make sense. They were still just burned stones.

"I could make you a stone that looks just like it," he said after a long pause. "I could even make it star shaped."

"That'd be pretty," Tsuzuki smiled at him.

"Should I?" He regretted mentioning it now, but Tsuzuki owned him.

Tsuzuki looked at him. "Do you want to?"

"No."

"Then I don't want one," Tsuzuki said and slipped his meteor back into his pocket.

Many decades later on a rather depressing birthday Tsuzuki fled to GenSouKai for company. Tatsumi was having a bad day and keeping all the other shinigami rushing about hectically. Everybody was grumpy and nobody seemed to want Tsuzuki around.

So yes, he admitted that his latest case had resulted in a little more damage than had been strictly necessary, but he'd been working with a complete stranger instead of the partner he'd gotten used to over many years. He'd simply forgotten that Hisoka was no longer there to cover his back and his new partner wasn't able to predict his moves, yet. The only way he'd seen to make up for the error was by brute force, though in hindsight throwing five shiki at his opponents had been overkill. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, though. Was that really reason enough to forget his birthday?

Of course for the last two or three decades it had usually been Hisoka who'd organised the party. With him so recently passed on it was understandable that nobody had remembered, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

Tsuzuki desperately needed something to distract him from the fact that his partner and best friend had left him. Today that loss hurt more than ever before.

At least he had his shiki, his oldest friends who'd seen so many partners come and go. He could rely on them and even though they hadn't expected a visit on this of all days they quickly organised a party that had everything he could desire.

The party was nearly over by the time he got a chance to talk to Touda. Tsuzuki knew that the hellfire serpent didn't feel comfortable at such social events and usually just made a short appearance, a clumsy attempt at politeness, before disappearing to some quiet retreat. It could be quite hard to find him on such occasions.

This time however Touda had stayed, hanging around the edges of the party and looking miserable. Tsuzuki concluded that that meant that Touda needed to talk to him.

But when the shinigami finally managed to extricate himself from the more social group that had formed around him and walk over to the serpent, Touda just pressed a wrapped package into his hand.

"I felt like making this and thought you might like to have it," he explained and left quickly.

Puzzled Tsuzuki unwrapped the gift hoping that it would explain the remark and it did. Touda had given him a heavy black stone in the shape of a star and if it wasn't quite symmetrical that only made it more beautiful in Tsuzuki's eyes. 


	23. Chapter 23

Title: Tsuzuki Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki Prompt: 084. He.  
Word Count: 257.  
Rating: G Summary: Touda wondering why Tsuzuki accepts him just the way he is.  
Author's Notes: This is a lot shorter than it probably should be, but there is a lot to say about the relationship between those two that Touda doesn't understand.

Tsuzuki was the center of Touda's world. It was Touda who'd made him that. He hadn't had to. Unlike other masters Touda had known Tsuzuki didn't expect total dedication. Maybe that was the reason he got more effort out of all his shiki than anybody else, but that was a question for psychologists. Touda didn't feel qualified to interpret the actions of others. He did not read people well.

Tsuzuki had to be aware of that flaw, but he never mentioned it. It seemed that he'd accepted it as he accepted so many other things. He never demanded that Touda should pay the people around him more attention, never told him he wouldn't displease others so much, if he just made a little effort, tried to be more observant. Maybe Tsuzuki understood that he couldn't, that no matter how hard he tried Touda didn't get people. Or maybe he didn't. Touda certainly didn't get Tsuzuki either.

But Tsuzuki would have been the center of his world without that acceptance. He was the one who had freed him from his prison, brought him out of the darkness of his cell. He had offered him friendship, when he could have demanded loyalty instead. Touda knew that he wasn't much of a friend, but once again Tsuzuki didn't seem to mind.

For some inexplicable reason Tsuzuki liked him the way he was, didn't try to change him and Touda suspected that that would have made him the center of his world, even if he'd had anything else to live for. 


	24. Chapter 24

Title: Sound Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda Prompt: 037. Sound.  
Word Count: 195.  
Rating: G Summary: Something's dripping.  
Author's Notes: Looking at how short it is I'm surprised how often I changed my mind about the time, setting, characters involved and direction of this piece while I wrote it.

Drip.

"Hiss!"

Drip.

"Hiss!"

Drip.

His cell must have sprung a leak. Just great. Nobody would care to repair it and now he couldn't even sleep.

Drip.

"Hiss!" he shot back automatically.

How could water get this deep into Tenku, though? Could it be a water pipe from upstairs? Perhaps that would bother someone and they'd repair it after all.

Drip.

"Hiss!" Touda's head shot up.

He blinked.

There were no chains hindering his movement. Starlight shone in through the open window.

Drip.

The sound was coming from the window as well.

Slowly, cautiously Touda snuck over and closed it. It took him a while to return completely from his dream and remember that there was no need to sneak about. He had every right to be here. This was his room even though it was still inside SohRyu's palace. He'd been living here for several years.

Still no matter how long he'd been free, in too frequent dreams he was back in his cell and each time when he woke up the dream seemed more real than this room, the past closer than the present. Sometimes he wondered whether he'd ever get over it. 


	25. Chapter 25

Title: Sneaking In Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, (Tenkuu and SohRyu mentioned)  
Prompt: 018. Black.  
Word Count: 441.  
Rating: G Summary: Touda doesn't really understand his own feelings, but he's drawn to this place nevertheless.  
Author's Notes: This one was surprisingly easy to write, even though I originally meant to write about Touda's fire instead.

Sneaking In

Again and again he was drawn back to his cell. If it weren't for Tenkuu's painful comments, Touda might well have set up residence there permanently, he thought with a wry smile. As it was he only came all the way down into the dungeons when he felt sure that the palace shiki was asleep and wouldn't notice.

Usually Tenkuu's first cruel remark greeted him the moment he entered the palace and on those days Touda redirected his steps towards the computer room or, more rarely towards SohRyu's study. Unpleasant as meetings with the powerful dragon were, they still served as a welcome distraction from ... other things.

Things which Touda didn't want to examine too closely. He didn't want to know what drove him to return to the place that had been his prison for centuries. He had been so happy to get out. He shouldn't want to ever see the place again.

Not that he was seeing much of it right now. He hadn't brought a torch and it wasn't because he'd forgotten. Sneaking was better done in the dark and he liked the dark. It felt safe, protective. Maybe it had something to do with his power. The black fire of hell was a darkness even deeper than any dungeon could ever reach and it was part of him. He controlled it. Or did it control him?

He let black flames dance over the floor in the middle of the room staring deep into their pitch black depth. No creature's eyes could pierce that blackness.

Black as hell.

Black as his soul.

Black as his heart.

This was his fire. This was him.

He wanted to curl up there. On the floor, right next to his flames. But if he gave in to that impulse he'd fall asleep here and when Tenkuu woke in the morning and found him here, with the black fire blazing ...

Tenkuu hated and feared the black flames. Normal fire couldn't harm the powerful palace much, but the black flames were a different matter. They could burn anything.

He could put out the flames before he curled up, of course, but he didn't much care for the ridicule that would follow, if Tenkuu found out he'd slept in the one place the palace claimed he belonged. And he didn't even want to know what the rest of them would say.

No, he'd leave now. It was late enough that he didn't risk being seen on his way out. He'd find a dark corner to spend the night in elsewhere. Outside, where no one was likely to catch him still asleep in the morning. 


	26. Chapter 26

Title: A Reminder Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Suzaku, Tenkuu Prompt: 089. Work.  
Word Count: 294.  
Rating: G Summary: Suzaku doesn't trust Touda, but she's not the only one.  
Author's Notes: Suzaku as the POV character. You probably won't see that from me very often. I don't like her any better than Touda does.

A Reminder

They'd assigned Touda to the computer work, because nobody else wanted to do it and it was much too important to be left undone, but somehow he appeared to have developed a taste for it. He'd become quite good at it, too and that worried Suzaku.

After all their entire world was placed inside a computer system and Touda had proven capable of mass murder before. He probably knew all the network's weak spots by now.

Thus she'd taken to checking up on him in the computer room every once in a while. Unfortunately all she ever saw was Touda with his visor plugged into the console and fingers flying over the keyboard.

How was she supposed to tell exactly what he was doing? She doubted that even Rikugou would be able to tell, if Touda had sabotaged the computer, before disaster struck. Maybe not even then.

They needed somebody who knew the system better than the serpent, but she had no idea where to find such a shiki, so she just kept on checking up on Touda and hoping that he thought she knew what she was looking for.

Touda glanced up and their eyes met through the visor.

Suzaku's feathers bristled.

Touda hissed.

"No fighting in there!" Tenkuu's voice boomed from out of nowhere. "You'll damage the computer."

"B... but that slimy snake!"

"Do you have any business in there, Suzaku?"

"Somebody has to watch the traitor," she declared.

"I see him wherever he goes inside me," Tenkuu stated.

Touda winced.

"I do not need you to provoke him into burning my walls, though," Tenkuu continued. "Get out of there, Suzaku. Do something productive."

She stalked off grumbling, though also slightly relieved. At least somebody was aware of the danger Touda posed. 


	27. Chapter 27

Title: Wrong Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda (Byakko mentioned)  
Prompt: 019. White.  
Word Count: 120.  
Rating: G Summary: Touda thinks about Byakko.  
Author's Notes: An attempt at writing a drabble. I could try to cut out 20 words, but past experience tells me that the story would lose too much, if I did, so I'll just leave it at this.

Touda had a problem with Byakko even though he'd never admit it out loud, of course. He liked the tiger.

He liked a fellow commander, a protector at that, and he couldn't even explain why. After all the others all hated and distrusted him and Byakko was just another of the lot.

There was something sweet and innocent about the protector of the west, but that couldn't be it. After all sweet and innocent was the perfect opposite of Touda. Why should he find it endearing?

The tiger was playful and happy and lazy and ... And he treated Touda politely, sometimes even friendly, but Touda couldn't like a fellow shiki, much less a divine commander. It just wasn't right. 


	28. Chapter 28

Title: Alone Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki, Rikugou (Suzaku mentioned)  
Prompt: 031. Sunrise.  
Word Count: 236.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Touda watches the sunrise and thinks about what it symbolises for him.  
Author's Notes: Touda, hellfire, hell – Exactly what is the connection there? Just wondering.

Touda watched the sun creep over the horizon setting the world on fire. Orange fire. Suzaku's fire. His own flames were black, blacker even than the night that had just passed.

He didn't like sunrises. They always reminded him that Gen Sou Kai was Suzaku's world, not his, never his. This was not his home.

He had been born into this world, but not into this city. His place was here, but he was not welcome here. There was no other place he'd ever consider calling home, but he didn't belong here. He was fire, but not this world's kind of fire. His fire was black, hellfire.

Touda had never been to hell. Sometimes he wondered what it might be like to visit the place. Would he immediately feel at home? Would he never want to return? He was a shikigami, not a demon. He didn't want to belong in hell.

"I love sunrises," Tsuzuki said with a happy smile. "They're so beautiful."

"I hate them," said Touda.

He could feel the others' stares on him. Wondering how a creature could be so unnatural to hate something this beautiful. He didn't belong with them, so he walked away to find himself a sunny spot.

"Not a morning person, I suppose," Tsuzuki commented sadly.

"He's cold blooded and it was a cold night," Rikugou pointed out. "Give him some time to warm up and he'll be fine." 


	29. Chapter 29

Title: So what?  
Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Rikugou (Genbu and Byakko mentioned)  
Prompt: 083. And.  
Word Count: 478.  
Rating: G Summary: Some problems are just weird.  
Author's Notes: Okay, this one is actually me trying to digest my first real interaction with the boss of my boss's boss. Yep, he's a bigwig. Couldn't even match my face to my name, but he came to talk to me, my boss and, after a whole weekend had passed, my boss' boss to discuss the fact that I don't use Word's automatic numbering function and my use of tabstops. (Well, my boss told him he doesn't see the point and would rather get back to the legal problem at hand.) Now the basis for his worries was a document I'd written for which I'd had to take technical information written by engineers (I'm not an engineer, so I don't understand all the terms and their grammar is wobbly) and present the commercial consequences in my boss' (absent) boss' lawyer style (I'm not a lawyer either, but I can at least mostly understand legal German.). At first I thought I couldn't do it. Then I managed an acceptable sounding text. And Mr. bigwig has no other worries than my formatting? Well, if I'd known that was of any consequence, I could have done even more artful things than automatic numbering, but I thought it was about the content. – Anyhow after that talk I was left wondering: "And?"

Touda started out in a good mood that Monday morning, which was unusual in itself. Touda rarely had good moods.

What was even more unusual was that said good mood continued through his arrival at work and the first security sweep with the computer. Only one new wormhole and it wasn't in an inhabited area.

Besides it was a beautiful day. Just as beautiful as the weekend had been. Maybe after work he'd go out to the park, find a nice sunny spot and watch the other shiki go by.

First he had to report the wormhole, though. Risk or not all wormholes had to be recorded and supervised. If they managed to determine a pattern ...

"Touda?"

"Morning." Touda said brightly. Rikugou wasn't exactly his favourite co-worker, but there were a lot worse. "What can I do for you?"

"Genbu told me he doesn't like your letter size."

Touda blinked. Yes, Genbu had been here on Friday to enquire why the hell Touda hadn't used ... whatever letter size it was Genbu considered most practical for wormhole reports. Touda hadn't really paid that much mind. Those reports were urgent and he sent them out as fast as he could. He did not concern himself with much formatting beyond making sure they were legible.

"It's an ordinary computer file," he stated. "If Genbu can't read it, he can change it in a matter of seconds."

"He could read it just fine. That's not what this is about. What do you have a computer for, if you use the basic setting? And about the spaces ..." he ranted on for a while.

Touda stared at him in surprise. He'd been extremely surprised on Friday that Genbu apparently had time to worry about the formatting of his messages. You'd think a guardian had bigger problems on his hands than Touda's tastes in formatting. Now it turned out that not only was it still an issue three days later, no it was even big enough that Genbu would bother Rikugou with it. In fact, it was big enough to bother Rikugou who should be quite busy with important research.

'And what exact formatting am I to use in my letter of resignation?' He just barely bit back the comment. It would be ridiculous to quit his job over a thing like this. His computer expertise was urgently needed here and what else would he do? Tsuzuki summoned him rarely enough and few shiki trusted him enough to hire him.

Instead he glanced back at the location of his current wormhole. Theoretically it was in Genbu's territory as well, but perhaps he could 'accidentally' send it to somewhere less discriminating. Byakko rarely gave him trouble and when he did it was over actual mistakes.

Could he come up with a halfway sane sounding reason to send all future wormhole reports to Byakko? 


	30. Chapter 30

Title: Why?  
Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, SohRyu Prompt: 080. Why?  
Word Count: 442.  
Rating: G Summary: SohRyu tries to figure out the details of Touda's almost killing of Tsuzuki.  
Author's Notes: SohRyu doesn't understand and Touda can't explain it without revealing more than he ever would to the dragon. Maybe Tsuzuki could make SohRyu understand, but I'm not sure they ever even talked about it.

SohRyu stared at Touda across his desk. A stranger would probably not have noticed it, but to the dragon who'd known him for centuries the serpent looked miserable. But was he miserable because Tsuzuki was hurt, or because SohRyu had cited him into his office? He used to know Touda, but now he didn't understand him at all.

"You tried to kill Tsuzuki?" he asked. Maybe he could get to the bottom of this, if they talked it through. That was why he'd called the serpent in here in the first place after all.

"Yes."

Short and simple, no explanations. That was typical for Touda nowadays. He'd been more talkative in the past,

"Why?" It didn't make sense. Nobody had more to lose by Tsuzuki's death than Touda.

"Because he asked me to."

Another simple statement.

"He asked you to kill him?"

"Yes, it was the first time he called on me and that was my task."

The mighty dragon shuddered. He considered himself the most powerful shiki in all GenSouKai and the most loyal subject of both the Golden Emperor and Tsuzuki, but that was not a task he thought he'd be able to fulfil.

"But why did you obey him?" he pushed. "How could you do it?"

"He is my master. I have to obey him." Touda looked at him for the first time. "As for how, I am a hellfire shiki. My fire will even burn a shinigami, even destroy a soul."

He was aware of the mechanics of course.

"But how could you bring yourself to do it? Don't you love Tsuzuki? Don't you realise how much you owe him?"

"And because I love him, because I owe him everything, how could I deny him the only thing he's ever asked of me? It was his wish to die. Should I have forced him to live for selfish reasons?"

"Why would he want to die? When Shinigami die they ..."

"I do not know why, but I am sure he had his reasons. It is not my place to ask such questions."

"But he wouldn't just have moved on, he'd have ceased to exist!"

"Maybe that's what he wanted," Touda stated. "I would."

"Why would he want that? Why would anyone?" SohRyu shouted. It didn't make sense. It would be ... the end. He stared at Touda. "Why would you?"

"Because ..." Touda started, but stopped and shook his head. "My reasons are my own, as Tsuzuki's are his. I did not ask Tsuzuki and you should not ask me. You wouldn't understand anyway. Punish me as you see fit, but I only did what I had to." 


	31. Chapter 31

Title: OnThe Roof Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda (Tsuzuki, Suzaku, mentioned)  
Prompt: 007. Days.  
Word Count: 592.  
Rating: PG Summary: Touda's waiting for Tsuzuki ... or is he?  
Author's Notes: That can't have been an easy time for Touda considering how bad his relationship with the others already was before ...

Touda was sitting on a roof on the outskirts of the city staring up at the clouds. No, he didn't feel like flying. He'd rather just stay here for another few days. Preferably until Tsuzuki showed up again.

If Tsuzuki ever showed up again. What if he didn't want anything to do with Touda anymore and stopped visiting GenSouKai? He could call the others to him whenever he wanted. If he still wanted to. Maybe he didn't want anything to do with shiki ever again.

Touda thought that was what Suzaku had meant to suggest when she'd screamed and swung her sword at him. He found people quite hard to read, though. Especially Suzaku. And now that he couldn't fight back anymore ...

Instead he'd ducked out the door and climbed onto the roof to ... wait for Tsuzuki. Yes, that was what he was doing. He wasn't hiding. After all he was in plain sight up here. Anyone who bothered to look would see him right away. Was it his fault that people never looked for him on their roofs?

It had been six days since Tsuzuki had ordered him to kill him and Suzaku had chased him to the roofs in retaliation for obeying. Didn't she realise that he couldn't refuse a direct order? He wasn't like other shiki in that, had no way of rebelling against his master, no right to say no.

And how could he refuse someone death, if they chose it?

Tsuzuki was a Shinigami. They were supposed to have the right to choose to die whenever they felt like it. He'd never quite understood why this wasn't so for Tsuzuki. What were they playing at in Meifu anyway?

All that was besides the point anyway, though, as Tsuzuki wasn't dead. Like all shiki Touda could feel his connection with his master at all times. It was what told them when he called for them, or came to visit.

Right now it was telling him that Tsuzuki was somewhere in another world. It felt like he was in Meifu, in fact, but to tell that for sure he'd have to actively probe the connection and then Tsuzuki would think he was attempting to make contact and that might not be welcome at this time. It was better to give Tsuzuki the message that he didn't care and leave it up to him whether he ever wanted to make contact with Touda again, or not.

He brushed away a tear. ... Damn wind up here. Yep, it was the wind getting into his eyes that was making him cry.

Anyway, if he could feel that Tsuzuki was alive, so could the others. So could Suzaku! She had to know there was no reason to attack him.

But then, why should he care? He didn't like his fellow shikigami and it was quite comfortable up here. He could easily stay for several more days. Provided that he went down there sometime soon to replenish is provisions. He was getting a little hungry.

He couldn't go right now, though. He had to wait for Tsuzuki. Yes, he couldn't not be up here when Tsuzuki arrived, so he'd have to go get the food tonight when everybody was asleep. Tsuzuki was not likely to visit in the middle of the night.

He shivered in a gust of wind. Perhaps he'd get a blanket to help keep him warm and to sleep on as well. Yes, that was a good idea. With food and a blanket he could keep waiting forever. 


	32. Chapter 32

Title: Keeping The Peace Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Suzaku, Tsuzuki (Tenkou, Kijin, SohRyu and Rikugou mentioned)  
Prompt: 002. Middles.  
Word Count: 906.  
Rating: G Summary: Tsuzuki would like his shikigami to get along. Unfortunately with twelve very strong personalities it's a lost cause.  
Author's Notes: It took me a while to come up with an idea for this one, but this isn't just a filler. It's an actual problem for these characters, I think. The shiki just can't get along peacefully, yet they also don't want Tsuzuki to get hurt and he feels it his duty to stop them from fighting each other.

The sword slashed down actually grazing his ankle, but he had no time to check for damage now. The leg still supported his weight and he wasn't in any danger of slipping in a pool of blood when he glanced down, so it was probably just a scratch.

He jumped back and hissed threateningly at Suzaku. Not too impressive a counter attack, but it was all he was allowed to do.

"Suzaku! Touda! No, stop it!" Tsuzuki dove between them unexpectedly and Suzaku dropped her sword with a surprised yelp. "What's going on?"

"I'm just punishing the snake for trying to kill you." Suzaku stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Touda stepped back slightly miffed at the way she said snake. It came out sounding like an insult somehow.

He supposed that he should probably leave. They didn't need him to explain anything when they'd had that very same discussion at least once every day during Tsuzuki's stay here. Really he wondered why the shinigami still bothered to ask. He had to know what was going on by now.

Just like bird-brain ought to know that Tsuzuki wouldn't accept that as a valid reason.

"He only did what I ordered him to do." Tsuzuki declared just on clue. "As any good shiki should."

Did that make Suzaku a bad shiki then? Tsuzuki should be more careful of his words. The bird was already angry and had a short temper. And a sharp sword.

It worried him how Tsuzuki always got in the middle of these things. Someday Suzaku might not drop her sword in time.

He didn't think that that sword could kill a shinigami and he himself could only activate his fire on Tsuzuki's own orders, but a sword wound still hurt and there were other fights Tsuzuki had a similar habit of getting in the way of.

He'd not only step between Touda and Suzaku arguing Touda's acting as Tsuzuki's suicide weapon just like he'd step between Kijin and Tenkou arguing over a toy.

He'd also step between Touda and SohRyu arguing Touda's right to exist and walk the streets of GenSouKai. Of course Tsuzuki was the cause of Touda's walking the streets just as much as he was that of Touda trying to kill him, but the dragon was the most powerful creature in all the realm. One shouldn't provoke him.

He'd step between SohRyu and Byakko arguing over Byakko's irresponsibility. Well, SohRyu called it irresponsibility. Tsuzuki called it a healthy balance between work and rest. Touda would have called it youthful playfulness, but nobody ever asked what Touda thought.

He'd step between SohRyu and Rikugou arguing SohRyu's leadership and that was probably the most dangerous place to be in all the realm.

Not that Touda worried about Rikugou. Rikugou was powerful, but if he even had a temper he was in perfect control of it. Rikugou was always in perfect control, reliable, calm, a rock in a wild ocean in a crisis. He wouldn't strike out at Tsuzuki no matter what.

But Rikugou had a way of riling up SohRyu that even Suzaku and Touda with their volatile personalities couldn't match. Somehow his logical arguments why SohRyu wasn't a good choice as a leader cut deeper than any insult Suzaku might shriek, or threat Touda might hiss. It caused SohRyu to strike out in a blind rage that had on more than one occasion struck objects and people other than Rikugou.

The shiki had learned to keep away when those two were at it, many seeing the destruction as confirmation of Rikugou's arguments, but none willing to step up and challenge the dragon out loud.

The only one who'd ever told SohRyu right out was Tsuzuki. Foolish Tsuzuki who'd stand between those two unarmed and ask them to make up and kiss. Well figuratively. Touda doubted either of the two would be much inclined to get that close to the other. He shook off the thought and returned to the problem at hand.

"Leave it, Tsuzuki. It's not like she ever actually hurts me."

Tsuzuki's eyes wandered down to his right ankle. He could only hope that no blood had trickled out past the black fabric there. The dark colour should hide any blood stains well enough.

And then all of a sudden Tsuzuki was hugging him. "Oh Touda, I'm so sorry. I never stopped to think what would happen to you, if you killed me. I was only thinking of myself and that I wanted to die. I should have remembered the consequences."

Touda blinked. He was never quite sure how to react to Tsuzuki's hugging attacks. He wasn't supposed to look like something anyone would like to hug.

"I am your shiki." he stated. "It is my duty to serve you and assure your safety, not the other way around."

Tsuzuki looked up at him fondly. "Idiot." he declared. "You're my shiki, so it's my responsibility to care for you and assure that you're well treated."

"You're the master and I the servant." Touda tried to explain.

"Nonsense. You're my friend."

"Your property."

"What?" Tsuzuki yelped outraged. "Of course not! Nobody could ever own a divine commander. It's .. it's ... Well, it's just not right."

Touda sighed. Such emotional tangles were beyond him. Perhaps he should leave it to Rikugou to untangle this mess. Earth shiki had a talent for such things. 


	33. Chapter 33

Title: Rivalry Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Hisoka, Tsuzuki (Tenkou and Tsuzuki mentioned)  
Prompt: 042. Triangle.  
Word Count: 592.  
Rating: G Summary: Touda just can't stand Hisoka. Not that Hisoka is fond of Touda either.  
Author's Notes: These characters are both too afraid of rejection to form relationships with others easily, but both cling to Tsuzuki as their only friend. It makes them quite jealous of his attention.

"Are you still here?" Touda hissed at the young Shinigami.

Green eyes narrowed and glared at him.

"Odd, I got the feeling that you were the one who wasn't welcome here."

"But you're the one who doesn't belong," Touda snapped back. "Your place is in Meifu and I for one think it's time you returned there."

"As soon as I find the right shiki for myself." Hisoka sneered back at him. "I don't like this stupid place anyway."

"You've got a shiki," Touda pointed out.

"Yeah, but Riko's sort of useless." Hisoka frowned more to himself now. "I need a powerful shiki, so I can be a worthy partner for Tsuzuki. All Riko does is squirt water at people."

"Is it my problem that he's all you can handle?" Touda didn't particularly like Riko either. Too wet.

"Hisoka, Touda, what's going on? You weren't arguing, were you?" Tsuzuki looked at them with big innocent puppy eyes.

Touda wondered whether anyone actually believed that act.

"Not really," Hisoka answered. "We just ... I suppose that's what the computer meant when it said I was highly incompatible with aggressive fire type shiki. We just don't react well to each other."

Tsuzuki stepped between them, slung an arm around each and pulled them close to his sides. Both stiffened and glared at each other.

"Byakko is going through the list of shiki again." Tsuzuki said pretending not to notice. "Maybe you should join him, Hisoka. You know best what kind of shiki you're looking for. And you, Touda, why don't you head back to the computer room and double check for wormholes? There seem to be more of them every day. ... Or else we could just head down to the kitchens for some rice cakes and ..."

They both snorted at him at the same time and stalked out in opposite directions. Tsuzuki almost laughed at how alike their reactions were. It was hard to believe that two people who had so much in common found it so hard to get along.

Then again, Touda and Hisoka were also so very different in so many ways.

What made them seem so alike at first glance was the fact that both of them had been deeply hurt in the past. They both cut themselves off from the people around them in a futile attempt to hide their emotional pain, but those wounds wouldn't heal, if they kept licking at them alone.

It wasn't easy to get through to either of them, Tsuzuki mused, but he had still managed somehow. Now they both needed him, depended on him to help them heal. Each demanded all his attention at the moment, but if he focused on either one of them, he'd only hurt the other more through lack of attention.

It would have been so much easier, if they just got along. Then he could have spent time with both of them at once and maybe they could even have helped each other ... But Hisoka was incompatible with fire types. It just wasn't meant to be.

Tsuzuki sighed. If he'd known this in advance, he'd never have brought Hisoka to GenSouKai. Those two had been a lot better in different worlds.

Maybe once Hisoka returned to Meifu he'd get his chance to work with each of them separately. His shiki didn't normally visit there. Their presence put too much strain on the barriers of that world and therefore required special permissions that were quite hard to get. For the first time he felt glad for that. 


	34. Chapter 34

Title: Unexpected Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki and Hisoka Prompt: 058. Dinner.  
Word Count: 549.  
Rating: G Summary: Tsuzuki summons Touda ... to Meifu?  
Author's Notes: I originally started this for the 'snow' prompt. As you can see no mention of snow was left by the time I finished it.

The summoning came unexpectedly. Of course for Touda they always did. Tsuzuki usually avoided calling on him even in the worst situations. He had other fighters with even more power and less deadly weapons and wouldn't risk using hellfire, if anything else would do.

Hence for Touda to get summoned the situation had to be desperate ... Or was Tsuzuki planning to ask him to kill him again?

If so, what should he do?

The control device was supposed to force him into absolute obedience to his master, though he'd never actually tested that aspect of it.

They'd repeatedly told him that he had been wrong to obey that command the first time. Tsuzuki had acted out of a momentary feeling. He didn't really want to die. Genbu had hinted that it might even be some mental illness that caused his occasional bouts of suicidal behaviour.

Most importantly, though, when it came down to it, Touda didn't want Tsuzuki to die. His master was all he had, his only friend and only reason for living. Without Tsuzuki there'd be nothing left for him. How could he ever kill Tsuzuki?

But how could he disobey Tsuzuki?

He hoped desperately that that wasn't what his master was calling him for now as he changed into his serpent form and followed the pull to ...

What in the world?

He was boxed in so tightly that he couldn't move. His head was stuck in a corner and all he could see were white walls. Whatever had possessed Tsuzuki to summon him inside a building? In an apparently rather small room at that!

"Er ... Tsuzuki?" that was the voice of that annoying partner, Hisoka, if Touda remembered correctly.

"Ups, I didn't think of that." That was Tsuzuki. "Touda?"

"Yessss?" He didn't like being boxed in at all. He couldn't even breathe properly.

"Can you change to human shape in Meifu?"

"Of course I can." What a stupid question. "But I can't fight like that."

Actually he could, but no better than a human would. If he needed another pair of human fists Tsuzuki might just as well ask for backup from another shinigami.

"Then please do."

He did.

It was definitely more comfortable, but what if the enemy attacked him now?

A glance around revealed that he was in a small, but comfortable living room and everything was peaceful. There was no attacker in sight other than Tsuzuki whose 'weapon' was a fierce hug that Touda knew from experience was absolutely inescapable no matter which form he was in.

And hadn't he just said that they were in Meifu? Why would Tsuzuki need him there?

"What's wrong? Why did you summon me?"

"Why did I ... Oh, right. Hisoka refuses to try my rice cake, so you're invited to dinner in his place." Tsuzuki explained.

"Hisoka refuses to try rice cake?" Touda repeated. What kind of emergency was that?

"Only because Tsuzuki made it." Hisoka stated. "His cooking is dangerous and I don't have a shiki to summon, so I suggested he feed it to his most dangerous shiki instead."

"Never mind him. He's just being mean. You'll try my cake, won't you, Touda?"

"Of course, Tsuzuki." And he was going to enjoy it, he knew. No matter what it tasted like. 


	35. Chapter 35

Title: Unnatural Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Hisoka, Tsuzuki (Touda is mentioned)  
Prompt: 011. Red.  
Word Count: 231.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Hisoka's thought about Touda ... and Tsuzuki's.  
Author's Notes: I don't know where this idea came from and the ending surprised even me. Characters have a mind of their own and I suppose they just wanted to say these things.

There was something unnatural about Touda, Hisoka thought. Something just felt wrong about that shiki. He wished Tsuzuki wouldn't call on him at all.

It wasn't the way Touda talked to him, the constant arguing. The feelings behind those insults were completely natural and sometimes even caused him to feel slightly sorry for the shiki. Yet, something still felt wrong.

Maybe it was his fire. Fire was supposed to be red, even when it was shikifire. Suzaku's fire was red. Kurikara's fire was red. Only Touda's fire was black.

Hellfire. Hot enough to burn even a shinigami to ashes.

It had almost killed both him and Tsuzuki once, but still Tsuzuki wouldn't give up his shiki.

"Fire shouldn't be black," he informed his partner. "It's unnatural. Fire is light, black is darkness."

"I know," said Tsuzuki. "Hellfire doesn't belong in our world. It's different."

"There, you said it yourself. Touda doesn't belong here."

"Touda is my friend," Tsuzuki said. "And one of the best fighters I've got."

"I know he's an excellent weapon ..." Hisoka started.

"He's not!" Tsuzuki rarely shouted like that. "He's my friend. He isn't a tool. You shouldn't call him that. It'd hurt him."

"He calls me names all the time." Hisoka sulked.

"He isn't like you, Hisoka." Tsuzuki said. "He's too vulnerable, the most deadly of my shiki is also the most vulnerable of them all." 


	36. Chapter 36

Title: She Doesn't Want To Know Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Suzaku Prompt: 085. She.  
Word Count: 351.  
Rating: G Summary: Suzaku doesn't want to know why she hates Touda.  
Author's Notes: I wrote this one a while ago and now have found out it's completely wrong according to Chinese Mythology, but here it is anyway.

She couldn't stand the serpent. Traitor! Murderer! Sneak! He'd even tried to kill Tsuzuki after all the shinigami had done for him.

Of course she knew that it had been on Tsuzuki's orders and the others kept reminding her that due to their own decision to equip him with a control device it was impossible for Touda to disobey Tsuzuki's orders.

She did her best to ignore that information, though. Hating Touda for the crimes he'd committed was easy. If she started thinking about it logically she might have to re-examine her feelings and look into the reasons behind them.

Suzaku was guardian of the south. That made her the most powerful fire shiki in GenSouKai, or at least she thought it should. It made her uneasy that another fire shiki should be powerful enough to possibly defeat her in a fair battle, but little could withstand hellfire and Touda was fast and precise. He didn't have to top her power output, if only he hit the right spot and even if his first strike missed he was tough enough to survive hers and would still have the power reserves for several more rounds.

Suzaku herself tended to spend most her power in her first attack. A second was rarely necessary, but when it was she found herself struggling. She was well aware of that, but apparently unable to do anything about it.

She'd often resolved to try Touda's style in her next fight, just for practise, but whenever it actually came to a fight she was so excited, or impatient, or angry that she threw everything she had into that first strike. Fire shiki were impulsive and emotional creatures and it was almost impossible to control that.

Touda's level of control was something highly unusual, downright unnatural, in fact. He shouldn't be able to do that any more than she was. He should burn with the power of his emotions like any other fire shiki.

Of course, if he did, he'd burn things as frequently as Suzaku did and then GenSouKai would be a scorched and blackened ruin by now. 


	37. Chapter 37

Title: A Meeting Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki Prompt: 013. Yellow.  
Word Count: 605.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Touda meets a ... serpent?  
Author's Notes: Borrowing Crowley from Good Omens here, though it should be readable even if you don't know him. (I hope crossovers are allowed, because I just couldn't resist having those two meet.)

Touda stared at the huge black snake.

The huge black snake stared at Touda.

They were about the same length, though the other might have been maybe a foot shorter than Touda. Still, if someone were to put a visor on this guy even SohRyu might have trouble telling them apart.

For just a second Touda considered proposing a switch.

Then rational thought set back in. If anyone were willing to switch lives with Touda, their situation would have to be desperate indeed and he had given Tsuzuki his word. Tsuzuki who was right there watching them.

Not to mention that the other guy didn't normally wear a visor and Touda couldn't take his off. It would probably be impossible to pass himself off as the other even if he could, though, because the one obvious difference between them were the other's striking yellow eyes.

"So you're an Akuma?" Touda asked in ancient Chinese.

The other's head jerked up in surprise and Touda remembered too late that they were in modern Japan.

He started to repeat himself in modern Japanese, but at that moment the other began to speak. In ancient Chinese as he had been addressed!

"Now that'sss a language I've not heard in quite sssome time."

Except for the hiss which was probably due to his serpentine nature his pronunciation was flawless, though there was a vague hint of an accent that Touda couldn't place.

"I'm a demon," the stranger continued using the Hebrew word, which earned him a puzzled stare from Touda who spoke various versions of Chinese and Japanese well enough and could make himself understood in English when he had to.

He actually considered himself quite well educated where languages were concerned.

"Judeo-Christian, you know," the stranger explained. "Sort of like your Akuma, but different philosophy."

"Um ... I'm Touda," said Touda. "I'm a shikigami. I ... uh ... get conjured and things."

He was mesmerised by those yellow eyes. So beautiful and reptilian.

"Yes, I'm familiar with the concept," the other stated casually. "I'm Crowley, by the way, the serpent of Eden."

"I don't know much about Judeo-Christianity," Touda admitted. In fact he'd never bothered with it before at all.

"Doesn't matter," said Crowley easily. "I know all about your mythology. It's part of my job to monitor human culture and occasionally report back on it. I'm hell's agent on Earth, you see. Have been for millennia, so I've run into just about every concept out there."

"I'm a divine commander." Touda felt a little shabby. "Well, the least influential out of twelve, I suppose, but it's at least something. Er ... can you turn human?"

Crowley did and Touda followed suit to avoid looking threatening.

In their human shapes they didn't look very similar at all.

"My, you're a pretty delicate thing," Crowley commented. "Or pretty and delicate, I might say."

"I'm tougher than I look," hissed Touda brushing his light purple hair out of his face.

Crowley was tall and European-looking, but what Touda envied him most was his black hair.

They obviously shared a preference for black clothing and in this shape Crowley wore black sunglasses to hide his eyes. They might have different colouring, in human shape, but a very similar style.

Touda missed seeing those beautiful yellow eyes, though.

"Isn't he cute?" Tsuzuki spoke up suddenly. "When I saw him change into a serpent I just had to call and show you. Sorry if I interrupted anything important."

Sometimes Touda spent hours lecturing Tsuzuki about when and for what reasons one ought to summon shiki, but this time he decided to let it slide. 


	38. Chapter 38

Title: Weekend Visits Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda (Tsuzuki, Suzaku, Byakko, Rikugou and SohRyu mentioned)  
Prompt: 008. Weeks.  
Word Count: 469.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Touda is almost always there to meet him when Tsuzuki visits. So how can it be that Tsuzuki doesn't know?  
Author's Notes: I don't remember where I got this idea from, but I've had it in the back of my mind for a while.

Almost every weekend that he had off Tsuzuki visited GenSouKai. Most of the time he came through the Suzaku gate.

Usually Touda would be waiting for him, though he didn't think anybody knew. He was always careful about it.

The rest of the time he only entered Suzaku's realm when he absolutely had to, but about an hour before the time Tsuzuki usually arrived he snuck in. He did his best not to be noticed by anyone, sneaking through back alleys and over roofs wherever he could.

Sometimes he mentally grumbled about it having to be Suzaku's gate out of all the four, but then Suzaku was Tsuzuki's 'big sister' and especially dear to him. Of course Tsuzuki enjoyed visiting her more than he cared about Touda's relationship with her.

He had a spot on a roof right next to a chimney where he was hard to see, but could see the gate perfectly. That's where he went to wait for Tsuzuki, even though he didn't need to see it to know when Tsuzuki arrived. They all knew that through their bonds with their master.

Once he knew Tsuzuki was there, he usually waited some more. Normally one of the others would come to meet their master soon enough. Most of the time it was Byakko, but Suzaku was usually closest and sometimes Rikugou came as well.

If none of them showed up within about an hour after Tsuzuki's arrival, then Touda went to meet him. Otherwise it depended on how well the last week had gone and who'd come.

After a very good week with no mishaps or arguments Touda sometimes dared to show himself even if Rikugou was there. He had to be very sure that he was in everybody's good books for that, though, so it didn't happen often. Next to never, actually.

When he'd had a good week, which meant only minor trouble with Suzaku and glares or the occasional harsh words from SohRyu, he'd avoid Rikugou, but sometimes didn't mind showing himself, if it was just Byakko.

After a bad week, when he was hiding from SohRyu's wrath, he usually just followed the others around in secret. He was good at hiding in the shadows. His black clothing helped a lot with that.

When Suzaku herself came out to meet Tsuzuki Touda would duck behind his chimney and wait until he was sure they'd all gone. SohRyu and Rikugou might be surprised to hear it, but he did not like to provoke Suzaku's wrath. It just happened.

He never admitted to having been waiting, of course. He'd just pretend that he'd happened across Tsuzuki by accident. Considering that it was a good thing that he didn't have good weeks too often. Tsuzuki would never have believed in accidental meetings that happened almost every week. 


	39. Chapter 39

Title: Club Meeting Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Kijin, Tenkou Prompt: 049. Club.  
Word Count: 523.  
Rating: G Summary: The adults are ... doing something together ... and Touda and the kids are left wondering what.  
Author's Notes: I almost had the kids invite Touda into a tree house for this, or the club wielding ghost of a barbarian rage through Meifu. In the end I neither felt right and I can't quite see the shiki go to a night club either.

They met every week in SohRyu's small sitting room (for about ten to twenty people), which usually was the favourite place of Kijin and Tenkou for indoor activities like card or board games.

When SohRyu had his unofficial meetings with the other divine commanders, though, the children were chased out and so was Touda. Most of the time Tenkou and Kijin took it well. They were used to being excluded by the adults. Touda didn't find it as easy to accept, but did his best not to show it.

"What do you think they're doing in there?" Kijin asked one day when he and Tenkou were once again trying to set a game back up after being chased off.

"Adult things, of course," Tenkou replied without looking up from the coloured stones she was sorting. "We'll have to start over again. I don't remember exactly where all my pawns were."

Kijin shrugged and started shuffling the cards. "Doesn't matter. The cards got mixed up anyway. I meant what sort of adult things."

"Well, politics things and diplomacy and war and such," Tenkou said. "As they always do."

She accepted her glass of fruit juice back from Touda who'd decided long ago that it was best if he carried the beverages, especially ones in fragile glasses and ones likely to leave stains if spilled. In return Tenkou pushed a handful of blue stones at him.

Touda didn't know why they always made him play blue, if there weren't any black pawns, but he didn't really care, so he'd never asked her. He was only playing to keep the children entertained after all.

"Can't be," Kijin stated. How he could talk and not loose his count of the cards he'd dealt them was a mystery to Touda. "They need Touda for that."

"I'm not actually a commander," Touda pointed out.

"Of course you are," Tenkou protested. "The servants always call you Commander."

So she'd noticed that they avoided using his name. "It's my official title," he explained slowly while picking up and sorting his cards. "But I'm not actually in charge of anybody so it's just a word without meaning."

"They always involve you in their official meetings," Kijin countered. "They wouldn't hold one without you."

"They usually ask my opinion in matters of strategy," Touda allowed. "But I don't have any say in politics and no talent for diplomacy."

"Still they wouldn't exclude you from any important political discussion," Kijin said sounding very convinced of his facts. "They're probably just playing cards."

"They can't be playing!" Tenkou protested. "Then we could have all played together."

"They're playing adult games," Touda said.

"They don't want us to get in the way," Kijin added. "It'd spoil their fun."

"It's a members only club and we aren't in it," Touda agreed. "They're probably just playing and drinking and discussing the return of the Golden Emperor, though."

"Then," Tenkou declared with a happy smile. "We'll just have our own club and they can't join. We can play and drink as well." She lifted her glass of juice in demonstration. "But we won't discuss the Golden Emperor. That's boring." 


	40. Chapter 40

Title: Little Worries Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Byakko, Touda, Tsuzuki (SohRyu, Tenkou and Kijin mentioned)  
Prompt: 024. Family.  
Word Count: 542.  
Rating: G Summary: Tsuzuki's asks an innocent question, but maybe the topic's better left alone.  
Author's Notes: I don't remember where I came up with this background for Touda, but it's quite firmly established itself in my mind. Byakko is the POV character here. Somehow I find that he and Touda make a good combination. They balance each other out.

Little Worries

"It worries me a little," Tsuzuki commented watching Tenkou and Kijin play in front of the door to SohRyu's study.

The children spent a lot of time there lately, waiting for their father to come out. Apparently they'd been told not to interrupt his work.

"What worries you?" Byakko asked eagerly. "I'll take care of it."

"That SohRyu hardly ever seems to have time for his family," Tsuzuki said with a sigh. "Is it normal for Shiki fathers to take so little interest in their children?"

"Yes," said Touda.

"No," sighed Byakko at exactly the same time.

They stared at each other for a moment before Touda shrugged and looked away.

Tsuzuki looked from one to the other.

"Well, mine didn't," Byakko amended his statement. "I've never really paid much attention to what other people's fathers did."

He paused and saw Tsuzuki's now even more worried look. Touda still wasn't looking at either of them pretending that he'd never entered the conversation at all.

It was creepy sometimes how Touda would trot along with you silently, often half a pace behind as if he were pretending not to be there at all. A dark, deadly presence. The others tended to get unnerved by it. Each of them had their own strategy to rid themselves of the silent shadow. Byakko tried not to let it bother him, especially when, like now, they were with Tsuzuki. Touda had as much right to be with his master as the rest of them and he wasn't actually hurting anyone by hanging around.

It'd be easier, if he'd just talk to people, though.

"My father was very playful," he continued hoping to mollify both his companions. "He enjoyed playing with children. SohRyu's a very busy shiki, what with having to run the entire realm. He's responsible for the well-being of all of us and he does see to it that his children are always well cared for."

Tsuzuki nodded, but Byakko knew it was mostly to console him, not because he'd managed to ease his master's worries.

"So, what was your father like, Touda?" the shinigami continued with a smile so bright it had to be faked.

Touda shrugged again turning his back on them. "I don't know. Never met him."

Tsuzuki's smile faltered. "I'm sorry." A hopeful look. "But you did have your mother, didn't you?"

"Yes," Touda stated darkly. "I did know my mother."

And all of a sudden Byakko remembered just who Touda's father had been. He'd never met him either, but his father had spoken of him sometimes, an exiled prince from the serpent kingdom who'd been taken in by a minor country Lord looking to profile himself. The prince had leeched off the Lord's generosity making him pay for his every whim. He'd never acknowledged Touda, the bastard child of one of the Lord's servant girls, but a single look at Touda was all it took to prove his parentage. After all how many other black serpent shiki were there running around GenSouKai?

He shook his head at Tsuzuki when the shinigami opened his mouth to speak again, indicating that he should not dig deeper. Byakko did not want to know what it meant to grow up as a slave girl's bastard. 


	41. Chapter 41

Title: Guessing Game Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou, Byakko, Taimou (SohRyu, Kijin, Tenkuu and Suzaku mentioned ... maybe others as well, but I think that's all of them)  
Prompt: 028. Children.  
Word Count: 1.396.  
Rating: G Summary: Tenkou had a nightmare, but that's what babysitters are for. Right?  
Author's Notes: More about Touda and the horse to come, probably under the title 'Protector', most likely more about the master and his whip and perhaps also about the incident with the river and little Touda's fear of water.

Guessing Game

"Touda?" Tenkou stood in the door in her nightshift staring at her naked toes and clutching her stuffed dragon.

Touda blinked at her. Hadn't she been fast asleep when he'd checked on the children only half an hour ago? He'd been so sure he'd finally gotten something right by managing to send them to bed on time.

Should he have done something more? Perhaps there was something more children needed to be able to sleep? He vaguely remembered hearing people speak of 'tucking in' their children, 'good night kisses' and 'bedtime stories'.

Suzaku had been right. He really was the worst babysitter of all times. Not that he'd ever admit it to the featherbrain's face.

Anyway, there had been no other choice. Everybody had been needed to help with the wormholes and only Touda had enough practise to track that many of them on the computer at once. He'd had to be the one to stay behind with the children and that meant he also had to watch them.

He'd hoped it wouldn't mean he had to stay the night, but Kijin had been adamant that they weren't able to sleep without an adult around in case of an emergency and no, Tenkuu didn't count.

"Yes?" he asked the little girl wearily.

"I had a nightmare!" she burst out and threw herself into his arms sobbing.

"Erm ..." What now? If you'd asked him five minutes ago Touda would have told you that he knew everything about nightmares. Now he wasn't so sure. "What kind of nightmare, honey?"

"The worst." she sniffled.

"The kind where there's a big battle and lots of blood and dead bodies?" Oh, how he knew those!

"No." Tenkou looked up at him sniffling a little less. "I've never had one like that."

"Really?" Touda asked surprised. "I get those all the time."

"Cool." Tenkou declared. "I want one. Sounds exciting."

Touda suppressed a shudder and put her back on her feet. Lucky child, she didn't know what true terror was.

"So what was your nightmare about then?" he asked again.

Tenkou hopped onto his bed ... well the bed in one of her father's servants' rooms. Touda hadn't dared to claim a guest room and this one had been closest to the children's rooms anyway. Probably meant for a nurse or nanny, so it had to be the right place for the babysitter, Touda had thought.

"Guess!" the tiny shiki demanded as she snuggled under the covers.

"Hmmm ..." What other kinds of nightmares were there? He doubted Tenkou would have ones where she was hunted by her father and the other divine commanders.

Well, except for him, of course, but she wouldn't come to him, if he'd been in her nightmare. At least he didn't think she would. Then again ...

"Was it the kind of nightmare where something chases you?" he tried.

"No." Tenkou said smugly. "But I do know those. They're nasty. With big, mean demons, or cyclones, or shiki-eating shadows."

"Or nasty adults." Touda nodded. He'd had some of those when he'd been her age.

That was it. He shouldn't be thinking of the nightmares he had now. They were based too much on experiences a sweet little girl like Tenkou wouldn't have had, yet. He had to think of the ones he'd had when he'd been small.

"Was it about someone punishing you?" He didn't think Tenkou had ever felt a whip in her life, but maybe sheltered children had a similar fear of house arrest or no pudding as he'd had of his master's whip.

"No." Tenkou giggled.

"Was it of someone wanting to do nasty things to you?" He tried remembering the pranks the other children had played on him when he'd been very small. Of course nobody would dare to deliberately hurt SohRyu's daughter, but maybe Kijin had unintentionally scared her with something he'd intended as a harmless joke and she was reliving that in her dreams.

"No. What kind of things would that be?" She sounded honestly baffled.

"Well," he thought a moment until he found a rather harmless example. "When I was very small an older boy pushed me into a river once. He didn't know I couldn't swim."

"What happened?" Wide eyes stared out at him from under his pillow.

"His father pulled me out the moment he noticed, but I had nightmares of that for weeks." Not to mention the kid and his friends had kept trying until he'd finally overcome his fear of water and it had stopped being fun.

That had actually been a nightmare instilled by a real danger at that time, so perhaps ...

"Was there a wormhole in your dream?"

"No."

"Water?"

"No, why would I be afraid of water?"

Right, she was a water shiki.

"Fire?" He'd never been afraid of fire of course, but a water shiki might be.

"No."

"Were you locked in?" Those nightmares of his cell ... He'd probably have one of those tonight. What with sleeping inside Tenkuu again, even if it was several floors above the dungeons.

"No."

Touda sighed. "Then I give up. I can't guess."

"Fine, I'll tell you," Tenkou promised. "But then you have to tell me a long story."

"About what?" He wasn't exactly good at inventing stories.

Tenkou thought for a moment. "About when you were small," she decided. "About friends."

Ah yes, there weren't any other children her age around and she loved to hear the others tell of their childhood friends. How was she to know he had no such stories to tell?

"My best friend was a horse, actually," he told her. "A really wild one. Do you want to hear how I befriended him?"

"Oh yes, adventure!" Tenkou nodded excitedly. "Tell!"

"Oh no, you first."

She frowned. "Okay. I dreamed I was all alone and I couldn't see anyone because it was terribly dark and I called and called, but there was nobody there. The dark's so terribly scary."

"It is?" Touda asked surprised. "I always liked being alone in the dark. In fact, when I was about your age I used to sneak out of the house at night to be alone. And during summer the horses would often spend the night outside as well ..."

"I just hope the children are alright." Taimou said.

She and Byakko had finally managed to dispose of their wormhole and when they'd checked in with SohRyu he'd sent them back to GenSouKai to rest. Surprisingly it had been Suzaku rather than SohRyu who'd asked them to check on Touda and the children.

"Why wouldn't they be?" Byakko asked. "Touda wouldn't actually hurt them. He might not be exactly good with people, but with the control device on he's absolutely harmless."

"I don't think he'd intentionally hurt them, but he's probably scared the wits out of the poor things with his threats," Taimou argued. "Either that or he's let them run wild and they might have hurt themselves."

Byakko paled. He hadn't thought of that. Touda had no experience minding children at all and he was such an insensitive idiot, he probably had no idea how to go about it.

He fastened his steps towards the children's rooms, but then noticed a door to his right that was a crack open. Candlelight flickered through that crack attracting his attention. There wasn't supposed to be anybody in there.

"Someone must have forgotten to blow out the candle," Taimou decided when he pointed it out. "We should extinguish it before it burns down and starts a fire."

"You're right. I'll just ..." Byakko pushed open the door and stepped into the room. His eyes widened and one hand flew to his mouth.

"What is it? Is something ..."

"Shhhh," Byakko shushed Taimou. "Look."

He stepped aside silently and then Taimou saw it too. Tenkou was asleep in the small servant's bed and next to her, half kneeling on the floor, half draped over the bed slept Touda.

Cautiously Byakko tiptoed over to the desk and blew out the candle. Lucky he had the night sight of a cat even in his human form.

"Aren't they cute?" Byakko asked once they were back out in the corridor with the door securely closed. "He must have fallen asleep watching over her."

"And we were worried that he wouldn't watch them enough." Taimou said contritely. 


	42. Chapter 42

Title: Dreams Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda (Tsuzuki, Tenku and Rikugou mentioned)  
Prompt: 004. Insides.  
Word Count: 310.  
Rating: PG.  
Summary: If only he could stop remembering.  
Author's Notes: What can I say about this? I don't think this will surprise anyone who knows Touda's story.

Most nights he found it hard to get to sleep. Sometimes he couldn't sleep at all. Those were his better nights for when he did fall asleep his dreams were all too often filled with the blood and screams of his victims, the terror that had been the last great war and the guilt he could never shake even when awake.

Most nights screams woke him. His own rather than those of the dead, though.

Alone in the dark he could see the faces of the dead more clearly than he'd ever seen them, though he'd never know for sure whether they were the spirits of the dead come to haunt him, or just own his mind's creations called fourth by his conscience.

Tsuzuki had insisted that they were the later, that he only needed to control his nightmares to banish them. He might as well try to control the sun and moon.

Still Tsuzuki might be right for some of the faces he saw in his dreams he knew were still alive. At least he knew so when he was awake. Once he fell asleep the dreams were the only thing that seemed real.

At least Tsuzuki hadn't told anyone, though Touda suspected that both Tenku and Rikugou knew.

Tenku would have had to be blind and deaf to not notice in all the years Touda'd been imprisoned inside him, though there was a chance that the palace had never guessed what the dreams were about.

With Rikugou it was a different matter. As far as Touda knew he'd never been there to witness one of his nightmares. Rationally Touda was convinced that the seer had no way of knowing, but when he looked at you with those knowing eyes.

Neither shiki had ever addressed the topic, but still it worried Touda. He did not want them to know. 


	43. Chapter 43

Title: Of Snakes And Snow Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Taimo, Suzaku, Tsuzuki, SohRyu, Byakko, Rikugou, Genbu (Tenkou and Tenku mentioned)  
Prompt: 061. Winter.  
Word Count: 539.  
Rating: G Summary: Snow shovelling just isn't for serpents.  
Author's Notes: Well, what does a cold blooded creature do in winter? Yes, exactly.

He was cold.

Of a fire-shiki that might seem surprising at first glance, but Touda was a serpent, the sun had set half an hour ago and this was the coldest winter GenSouKai had seen in decades.

Coldest and snowiest he could remember, in fact, but then he rarely went outside in winter. Winter was a time to spend dozing by the fireplace, perhaps reading ...

Tsuzuki and SohRyu had ordered them outside this morning to help dig the city out of the snow. Normally they could leave such duties to the common citizens, but half of the population was snowed in with no chance to get out of their homes unless somebody dug out their doors or windows.

"Touda!" That was Taimo again. "Damn you serpent, you're lagging behind again. Are you planning on spending the night here?"

He was cold. And tired. So very, very tired.

He picked up his shovel again without even looking at Taimo. He just didn't have the energy.

"Well, you lazy serpent?"

"Leave him alone, Suzaku." Tsuzuki stepped in. "We don't have time for that."

So now they'd managed to attract everybody's attention. Just great, but he couldn't bring himself to feel angry about it. All he felt was tired.

"Are you okay, Touda?" Tsuzuki appeared at his side.

"Mmm."

Tsuzuki blinked, then turned to Byakko for help.

"Ah, leave him. He's just in a grumpy mood today," the tiger suggested.

"I don't know." Tsuzuki shook his head. "Something's not right about this. I've never seen him so sluggish. What if he's got the flu or something and we're dragging him around in the cold."

"Snakes don't get the flu that easily," Byakko returned. "They just don't like cold weather."

SohRyu stopped abruptly almost causing Rikugou to collide with him. "Touda, return to Tenku at once."

"What!" gasped Suzaku. "You can't let that lazy snake get out of working like that!"

"I'm not letting him get out of working." SohRyu shot her a glare. "He can make himself useful inside, check up on Tenkou, mind the computer and keep an eye on the weather report."

"But we need all the help we can get out here," Tsuzuki protested. "Every pair of hands counts."

"Touda will be no help to us at all, if he goes into hibernation," Genbu explained. "Snakes don't like the cold for a good reason. They're cold-blooded. Leave them in the cold too long and they just drop."

"And it takes days until they're fully awake again," SohRyu added with a slight glare at Suzaku. "Touda would be no use at all for at least a week."

Ah, so that's what was going on. He turned around to follow SohRyu's command, but the palace had never seemed so far away and he was so ... so ... tir...

He dropped into the snow. Icy ... cold.

"Touda!" Tsuzuki threw himself down beside him and pulled him into his lap. Warm, but much too small human hands trying to rub some life energy back into him were the last thing Touda saw of that winter.

The next thing he knew he woke up surrounded by thick warm blankets next to a blazing fire.

'Nice.' he thought and went back to sleep. 


	44. Chapter 44

Title: Touda's List Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda (almost every shiki mentioned)  
Prompt: 022. Enemies.  
Word Count: 751.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Touda is preparing for what he thinks is inevitable.  
Author's Notes: This one changed direction halfway through the writing. Not sure whether it's any good or I should have cut the first part, but I didn't feel like cutting.

Touda watched his fellow divine commanders.

He'd once said he'd be enemies with them all. What he'd really meant was that at the end of the day they were his enemies anyway, though sometimes he wasn't so sure. There was that nagging fear in him that they could get even worse.

Oh, not Suzaku, no. But SohRyu, who tolerated him for Tsuzuki's sake, or Tenkou, who was currently too young to understand who he was and what he'd done.

Then there was Rikugou who sometimes seemed to make an effort to be friendly. And Byakko. He'd never had a fight with Byakko, yet.

The tiger was too lazy and easy-going to throw sudden tantrums, but Touda knew that he had a temper. All air-shiki did. They weren't as explosive as fire shiki, but when they did explode ...

And Byakko was powerful, a guardian even. Touda didn't want to be on a guardian's bad side, but somehow he had a tendency to end up on everybody's hate list. It was bad enough that he was at war with Suzaku and always just a step away from an all out battle with SohRyu.

Would he really stand a chance of survival in a fight against all four? Just where did Genbu stand and how dangerous was he in battle?

Genbu had to be very powerful to have reached his position, but Touda had never seen him in a fight. Earth shiki didn't tend to be warriors, so maybe Genbu's strengths lay elsewhere?

Then again Rikugou was quite formidable on the rare occasions that he did get physical. Touda just couldn't imagine someone respecting a teacher who was a lesser fighter than themselves.

Genbu didn't seem to have a very long attention span and concentration was vital in battle, but that was very unlikely in an earth shiki. It was air shiki that usually had problems concentrating. Perhaps it was an act.

So Touda watched his enemies compiling lists in his head.

SohRyu was the one he considered the most dangerous. He was the most powerful and his weapon could affect Touda the most easily.

He tended to put Suzaku second, even though her fire couldn't hurt him. She was a warrior and hated him most of all and she'd fought him the most often. She should be most used to his style and able to predict his reactions by now. She'd find a way to kill him somehow.

Then Byakko, who wasn't a killer by nature, but had all the power he needed to rip Touda to pieces. His wind-powers were probably the best possible defence against hellfire as well. If Byakko were willing to fan the flames and put others at risk that was. Touda didn't think he would, which was why he put the cat behind Suzaku.

Next came Genbu, purely on suspicion. An unknown quantity in the equation. It might be wrong to just assume that he was the worst fighter out of the guardians, but Touda counted on him at least being out of practise. If he were practising regularly, someone would have seen it sometime. Earth wasn't a very offensive power anyway.

Teimou on the other hand ... now that was offensive power galore. The forbidden magic was powerful and deadly. That was why it was forbidden.

Rikugou with little offensive power, but a devious mind and enough physical skill to hold his own in a fight with almost anyone.

Daion, though Touda thought he could take that one quite easily.

Tenku's powers were passive, but his strategies were sound. He was no treat on his own, but could pose a problem when co-ordinating a team effort. If that happened Touda was quite sure he'd be as good as dead.

Touda wasn't sure who should be next on the list. Kouchin wasn't a warrior and Kjin lacked the experience to be truly dangerous. He was old enough to have the control over his powers that he needed in battle, though.

Tenkou was last. She was still too young to fight, but you never knew what the future might bring. Touda didn't want to have to kill her, but what choice would he have? If he did win against all the others he couldn't spare her, or she'd grow up to avenge them.

He hated thinking about these things, but he knew that he had to be prepared. Someday in one way or another Tsuzuki wouldn't be there to protect him from the others' hatred and then they'd attack. 


	45. Chapter 45

Title: Nobody?  
Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda Prompt: 047. Heart.  
Word Count: 380.  
Rating: G Summary: Some days Touda just feels like they're all against him.  
Author's Notes: The only explanation I have for this one is that it was written on the same day as the Storm prompt. I seem to have had meetings on my mind at the time.

"I don't see why the traitor should be part of this," Suzaku declared half-way through the meeting.

Touda didn't really understand what had brought this on. Yes, he'd been speaking against Suzaku's plan, but only to point out that it was technically impossible. He wasn't personally against the idea, if they found a way to make it work.

"Suzaku does have a point, you know," Rikugou agreed. "He may be Tsuzuki's shiki, but that shouldn't automatically make him part of GenSouKai's government."

"It's not like anybody actually trusts him," SohRyu said.

Touda wondered which side that argument was supposed to support.

"Nor does anybody actually want him around." That was Taimo.

"I am merely explaining relevant technical facts," Touda stated forcing himself to stay calm. "And as far as I am aware, you currently don't have any other experts on hand."

"That is besides the point."

Maybe it was, but then again Touda was aware that he had no friends other than his master Tsuzuki and the shinigami was rarely around. Did they have to rub it in?

The argument continued around him and he decided to sit down. Speaking up against them would be pouring oil into the flames and leaving without a fight would be cowardice. So he waited for their decision and reminded himself that he didn't really care what became of GenSouKai. The only important thing in the world was Tsuzuki and Tsuzuki didn't live here.

Maybe he should leave the city as well. Nobody here would miss him and he'd still be in reach whenever Tsuzuki called, if he lived in the country. A little hut deep in the forest perhaps ...

The door flew open and Tenkou bounced in waving a piece of paper. It was amazing how easily one little girl could silence a heated argument. Everybody stared at her as she ran down the room without sparing them a glance and stopped beside Touda's chair.

"Here," she said thrusting the sheet of paper into his hands. "I drew this for you."

"That can wait until after the meeting, Tenkou," SohRyu ordered pointing at the door. "You know you're not allowed in here."

Tenkou left pouting, but the drawing remained behind, a clumsily drawn black snake in front of a big red heart. 


	46. Chapter 46

Title: The Mathematics of Werewolves Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki Prompt: 045. Moon.  
Word Count: 463.  
Rating: G Summary: Tsuzuki might have a werewolf case on his hands. Touda doubts it.  
Author's Notes: Just seeing what Touda would do when faced with the idea of werewolves.

"Do you believe in werewolves?" Tsuzuki asked never taking his eyes off the full moon above them.

"What's that?"

"Do you believe in werewolves?" Tsuzuki repeated.

"No, I meant what are werewolves? I've never heard of them."

Touda didn't like it when Tsuzuki was brooding. It made him depressed and depressed Tsuzuki ... well, it just wasn't right.

"Oh, never mind," Tsuzuki gave him a false smile. "Just something to do with my latest case."

Touda regarded his master for a moment. He didn't really care about Tsuzuki's cases and he didn't read people well, but even he had figured out that the cases had an influence on the shinigami's wellbeing and he did care about that.

"Tell me," he said. "Maybe I can help you, if I know what it is you're looking for."

"A western myth as far as I know," Tsuzuki explained. "I don't really know much, though. Always thought they were imaginary up until now."

Touda nodded at him to continue. A foreign myth, okay, but that could be anything.

"They're humans who turn into wolves on the full moon. People who are bitten by them turn into werewolves as well."

"Wolf shiki turn into wolves." Well, technically wolf shiki turned into humans, but it was likely that humans would have a different perspective.

"Not on the full moon and they don't become murderous monsters. This is something completely different. The man whose soul I'm supposed to find claimed to be a werewolf and since his death every full moon they find a mauled body near his former home. I didn't believe it at first, but it's becoming too much to be a coincidence."

"He was mad?" Touda asked.

Tsuzuki nodded. "That's what they thought when he was still alive at least."

"I don't see why you'd have to believe in a weird foreign myth to solve that case," Touda said. "You're most likely just dealing with a confused soul who somehow ducked under Meifu's radar and is living out his delusions."

"But what if it is real?"

"Lets see," Touda grinned. "Take a town with six thousand inhabitants for an example. One of them is a werewolf and on every full moon he kills someone who becomes a werewolf as well. On the first full moon you get one mauled body, on the second two, because you now have two werewolves. On the third full moon four, then eight, sixteen. After a year you have 2048 werewolves. That's a third of the population. If your werewolves were real, there'd be no humans left by now."

Tsuzuki nodded. "There's only ever been one body per full moon."

"See, it's nonsense." Unless of course most of those killed didn't turn into werewolves. What if it was restricted to special cases? 


	47. Chapter 47

Title: Club Meeting Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Kijin, Tenkou Prompt: 049. Club.  
Word Count: 523.  
Rating: G Summary: The adults are ... doing something together ... and Touda and the kids are left wondering what.  
Author's Notes: I almost had the kids invite Touda into a tree house for this, or the club wielding ghost of a barbarian rage through Meifu. In the end I neither felt right and I can't quite see the shiki go to a night club either.

They met every week in SohRyu's small sitting room (for about ten to twenty people), which usually was the favourite place of Kijin and Tenkou for indoor activities like card or board games.

When SohRyu had his unofficial meetings with the other divine commanders, though, the children were chased out and so was Touda. Most of the time Tenkou and Kijin took it well. They were used to being excluded by the adults. Touda didn't find it as easy to accept, but did his best not to show it.

"What do you think they're doing in there?" Kijin asked one day when he and Tenkou were once again trying to set a game back up after being chased off.

"Adult things, of course," Tenkou replied without looking up from the coloured stones she was sorting. "We'll have to start over again. I don't remember exactly where all my pawns were."

Kijin shrugged and started shuffling the cards. "Doesn't matter. The cards got mixed up anyway. I meant what sort of adult things."

"Well, politics things and diplomacy and war and such," Tenkou said. "As they always do."

She accepted her glass of fruit juice back from Touda who'd decided long ago that it was best if he carried the beverages, especially ones in fragile glasses and ones likely to leave stains if spilled. In return Tenkou pushed a handful of blue stones at him.

Touda didn't know why they always made him play blue, if there weren't any black pawns, but he didn't really care, so he'd never asked her. He was only playing to keep the children entertained after all.

"Can't be," Kijin stated. How he could talk and not loose his count of the cards he'd dealt them was a mystery to Touda. "They need Touda for that."

"I'm not actually a commander," Touda pointed out.

"Of course you are," Tenkou protested. "The servants always call you Commander."

So she'd noticed that they avoided using his name. "It's my official title," he explained slowly while picking up and sorting his cards. "But I'm not actually in charge of anybody so it's just a word without meaning."

"They always involve you in their official meetings," Kijin countered. "They wouldn't hold one without you."

"They usually ask my opinion in matters of strategy," Touda allowed. "But I don't have any say in politics and no talent for diplomacy."

"Still they wouldn't exclude you from any important political discussion," Kijin said sounding very convinced of his facts. "They're probably just playing cards."

"They can't be playing!" Tenkou protested. "Then we could have all played together."

"They're playing adult games," Touda said.

"They don't want us to get in the way," Kijin added. "It'd spoil their fun."

"It's a members only club and we aren't in it," Touda agreed. "They're probably just playing and drinking and discussing the return of the Golden Emperor, though."

"Then," Tenkou declared with a happy smile. "We'll just have our own club and they can't join. We can play and drink as well." She lifted her glass of juice in demonstration. "But we won't discuss the Golden Emperor. That's boring." 


	48. Chapter 48

Title: A Place To Belong Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: SohRyu, Tenkou, Genbu, Suzaku, Byakko, Rikugou, Kichin, Touda, Tenku, Taimou, Tsuzuki (Daion and Kochin mentioned)  
Prompt: 003. Ends.  
Word Count: 3010.  
Rating: PG-13 Summary: At first Touda just wanted an office he could retreat into, but he caught SohRyu at a bad time and now he needs a new place to sleep.  
Author's Notes: I felt a little down this week ...

SohRyu was having a bad day. There'd been a total of fifteen wormholes to deal with since morning, Tenkou was sick and cranky and insisted she wanted her Father not some random servant to take care of her, he'd promised to see Genbu about some undisclosed organisational matter, Suzaku had complained about food deliveries to some remote part of her sector being endangered by Byakko's postponing repairs on an apparently badly damaged road. The tiger in turn had complained about Suzaku's behaviour and lack of funds for major repair projects. Apparently the wormholes had not only destroyed a significant part of his subjects' harvest, but fighting them and the necessary evacuations and repairs had cost a substantial amount of money. Five minutes ago he'd lost his temper and struck Rikugou. Luckily nobody had witnessed the scene, but he'd have to apologise and convince Rikugou not to spread the story. Shiki were not fond of violent leaders.

Of course how he could convince Rikugou of such a thing he had no idea. It looked like an impossible task. After all this was exactly what he'd been waiting for: A chance to demonstrate that SohRyu was too emotionally unstable to lead GenSouKai.

Once he had all those minor impossibilities worked out he needed to organise Kichin's birthday party before the end of the week.

And on top of all that Touda was going on about how he couldn't work the computer in peace with people constantly looking over his shoulder. The treacherous snake apparently wanted a private office.

SohRyu just wanted to be left alone. He was meeting Genbu in a few minutes and would rather catch Rikugou before that. Ergo he needed to get rid of Touda. He could perhaps have done that by granting him that office. The emperor knew he had room enough, but he didn't think Touda deserved it and he wasn't in the mood. Why did he have to anyway? He was the one in charge here, after all.

"I don't see what for." he snapped at the serpent.

"I just told you. I can't do my work with people running past and asking random questions all the time as if I were some sort of secretary or porter."

"Then don't!" SohRyu thundered. "Do you think you're the only one who knows how to use a computer? With Rikugou's new tracking programme anyone can monitor the wormholes. You think you can't do it? Fine, get lost. I'll assign Kichin to the task. We don't need you."

"Don't need me?" Touda hissed. "After all I've done for you?"

"Done for us? Done what?" the dragon snapped. "You've done nothing at all. Nothing except kill hundreds of innocent people. You prance around, get in everybody's way, eat our food and steal my time. That's what you do. Now excuse me, I've got a meeting with Genbu who actually happens to be doing important work and I want to inform my son of his new duties before I go."

"SohRyu ..." but the dragon had already walked out on him.

"I know how to use a simple computer, Touda." Kichin snapped at the serpent. "I don't need your help with it."

"You don't know the tracking programme." Touda insisted.

"I'll figure it out." Kichin said. "On my own. Father relieved you of this work, so it's none of your business anymore. Just get out."

"He's right." Tenku's voice rang through the room. "You have no business here right now, so I don't have to tolerate you inside me. Leave, before I throw you out."

"I haven't visited Tenkou, yet." the serpent pointed out.

"She's sick and needs her rest." Tenku declared. "The last thing she wants is a stinking hell serpent to waste her time and patience and keep her awake. She'll be quite relieved not to have to deal with you today."

So Touda packed what few possessions he had and went to find a new place to live. It wasn't an easy task. He didn't have any place of his own anymore, nor did SohRyu pay him any money to buy or rent a room with. That meant he had to convince someone to take him in for free.

He didn't have any actual friends as none of his fellow shiki really trusted him, so where to turn?

Well, there was another shiki people avoided because they didn't trust him. Maybe Taimou was feeling lonely and wouldn't mind a house-guest too much?

Touda walked to the magician's lonely little house just outside the city and knocked.

It took almost five minutes before Taimou answered the door.

"Touda?"

"Hi, Taimou." he did his best to look friendly. "I had a bit of a falling out with Tenku and was wondering, if I could perhaps stay with you for a few days." Make a short time arrangement at first. Maybe he could make amends with SohRyu or Tenku. If not it'd at least give Taimou a chance to get used to his presence slowly.

"Let you into my home?" He liked his privacy. In fact, he scared people away on purpose, because he felt crowded by them. "Most certainly not."

Taimou waved his hand and an invisible force pulled Touda off his feet and threw him several metres back. By the time he'd recovered from the impact Taimou 's door was once again firmly closed.

Now what? Kochin, the singer, travelled between the various palaces most of the time and as far as Touda knew didn't have an actual home. Daion made his home in SohRyu's kitchens. Fine for a pot, Touda supposed, but serpents didn't feel at home on shelves and he wasn't welcome there anyway. That left him with four more options, one of which was really no option at all.

Of those three remaining Byakko was the one Touda felt most comfortable around. At least, the tiger tolerated him easily enough when they worked together. He'd never tried to visit him before, though.

As it turned out that had been wise. He was stopped by a very nervous looking servant right at the door of Byakko's palace.

"I need to talk with Lord Byakko." he told the shivering underling in a casual tone. If he sounded demanding he'd only scare him further and if he was too submissive to a servant he wouldn't seem worthy of an audience with the protector of the west and be kicked out right away.

"I will inform the master." the servant promised. "Please wait here."

Outside in the street?

"Could I wait inside perhaps? I've been on my feet quite a while and would prefer to sit down."

"Not without the permission of the master."

"Very well then. I'll wait outside." What other choice did he have?

"Mylord?" the servant bowed deeply. "The serpent Touda wishes to talk to you."

"Touda?" Byakko repeated surprised.

He'd only just returned from a meeting with SohRyu in Tenku and even though the dragon himself hadn't mentioned the serpent at all everybody was whispering about the argument the two had had this morning. An argument that had ended with Touda's eviction from the palace.

Did the serpent intend to move in here after that?

At any other time he'd have at the very least gone to hear whatever Touda had to say. They served the same shinigami master after all and aside from his infamous past he had little against the fire shiki. They got along fine, though Touda tended to be rather mopey sometimes. Then again Byakko could understand why. In fact, he felt a little sorry for the lonely serpent. It was high time someone reached out to him and he'd considered doing so on one or two occasions.

Now was a terribly inconvenient time for that. If he took in the fire serpent, it would upset both SohRyu and Suzaku and he was already teetering on the brink of war with the phoenix. He didn't have the money to fulfil Suzaku's demands despite the fact that he fully understood the problem. The only solution he could see was if SohRyu either took over the costs of the repairs, at least in form of a loan, or provided supplies from elsewhere. In either case he depended on SohRyu's kindness right now. Any association with Touda might cost him that.

Besides the serpent was dangerous. Fire shiki were quite temperamental and Touda's fire was extremely deadly. It probably wasn't the best of ideas to let him roam around his home unsupervised, even if he didn't expect any deliberate harm to come from him.

"Tell him that I have an urgent meeting with Lady Suzaku and can't spare the time and ask him to come back some other day. I'm very busy at the moment, but will see him whenever I can make time."

Well, that much for Byakko's friendliness.

Touda let himself be complemented away without much resistance. He might be able to fight his way into the palace, and if he did he was quite sure Byakko would find time for him quite quickly, but the tiger also wouldn't be in the least inclined to do him any favours, especially not to allow him into the home he'd just violated.

The servant made the usual platitudes and promises the protectors fed low level shiki that bothered them, but it didn't really matter. Touda had no plans to ever come back for a second attempt anyway.

Instead he continued to practise patience in what had to be the most shabby waiting room in Genbu's palace and tried to tell himself that it was a good sign that he'd been allowed into the building this time.

Genbu himself granted him an audience of a full five minutes while signing documents at the same time. He was polite enough to apologise and claim that it was all very urgent paperwork, so Touda tried not to feel hurt and abstained from burning any papers.

In the end he was politely informed that Genbu's huge palace did not have enough room for a second high level shiki. Genbu recommended trying elsewhere.

Which left Rikugou as Touda's last hope, a calm, understanding and usually friendly shiki. He'd have been the ideal choice, if Touda hadn't been so uncomfortable around him.

Well, he wasn't exactly comfortable around SohRyu either and had still spent decades under his roof. He could get used to Rikugou.

"A fire shiki in my home?" Rikugou shook his head, regretfully though. "No way. You have to understand," he gestured at their surroundings. "All those books and parchments are highly flammable and immensely valuable. And your type are well known to suffer occasional accidents with your powers. I know you wouldn't burn my things on purpose, but a single little spark that escaped you might be enough to burn the whole library. I just can't take the risk."

"I'm not some newly hatched idiot." Touda declared affronted. "Nor an uncontrolled fool like Suzaku. My power is hellfire, not some ordinary flame that can go unchecked like that. I assure you that I have perfect control of it."

"Of course. You only happened to burn hundreds of shiki because you felt like it," Rikugou reminded him. "Without the control device you're not even safe around people and you expect me to trust you around books?"

Touda recognised a lost cause when he saw one. He wondered whether the weather was still warm enough to sleep under a bridge. Being cold blooded he couldn't afford to lose too much body warmth.

He could use his fire to keep him warm of course, but after seeing how much that scared Rikugou he was reluctant to let anyone see his flames. Maybe he should stop using his power entirely. If it earned him the trust of his fellow shiki back, it might be worth it.

There was one shiki he hadn't asked yet, though. Suzaku hated him and had never even attempted to hide that fact, but they said she'd do anything for Tsuzuki.

Touda actually found himself forced to suppress a sob at the thought of his master. If only Tsuzuki were here he wouldn't have had to go begging to all those self righteous commanders. Tsuzuki would have taken him in for however long he needed to stay no questions asked. Even, if his fire were out of control, even if Tsuzuki had no time, or just a single tiny room to live in. Tsuzuki would share anything with a shiki in need.

But Tsuzuki was in Meifu and Touda couldn't get there unless Tsuzuki conjured him and Tsuzuki had no way of knowing that Touda needed him. Still, at least he had one friend somewhere in the universe.

"Take you in?" Suzaku laughed. "You? The one who tried to murder Tsuzuki?"

"I only did as he ordered me to do." Touda defended himself. "I thought he wanted to die. I have to do whatever he tells me to."

"Murderer!" Suzaku shrieked and swiped at him with her sword.

It cut into Touda's side despite his quick dodge, but he ignored the pain.

"I am Tsuzuki's shiki, too." he pointed out. "Keeping me alive and healthy is in his interest. That's all I ask of you. You don't have to like me. Don't even have to see me, if you don't want to."

"In Tsuzuki's interest, don't make me laugh." Suzaku swiped at him again, but this time he managed to dive away. "What have you ever done for him? In all the years you claim to have served him he only called for you one single time and then you tried to kill him. You have never done anything good for anyone. The only thing you can do is kill and destroy. I'd be doing Tsuzuki and everybody else a favour if I killed you!"

Another flurry of sword moves followed and Touda had to dive out the door in order to save himself. He kept running until he was sure he was out of sight from Suzaku's palace and the wound in his side began to bother him more than his fear.

He found a park bench to sit down on and inspected the cut. It was deeper than he'd first thought. Not deep enough that he needed to fear for his life, if he just got somebody to bind it. Rikugou would do it for him and his home wasn't that far from here.

And what would he tell Rikugou?

'I ran into Suzaku and lost concentration for a moment. Stupid accident really,' would probably do it.

Rikugou wouldn't be happy to see him again this soon after sending him on his way and he'd be nervous about his books. If he went back to Tenku the sentient palace himself would alert someone to his need right away, but he wasn't welcome there either. He decided to just rest a bit before making up his mind. The blood loss had weakened him and he felt tired.

Actually that ought to be a good reason to make haste, but where to? Once again he longed for Tsuzuki, but he couldn't get Suzaku's words out of his mind. They rang only too true. Tsuzuki had indeed called on him only one single time and then it had been when he wanted to kill himself. He'd known that none of his other shiki would obey such an order, nor did any of them have a power that could truly kill a shinigami.

Maybe Tsuzuki would indeed be safer without him. GenSouKai most certainly didn't need or want him, nor had he ever truly had a place there or anywhere. For a moment he thought longingly of his childhood home where he could flee into the loving arms of his mother when things got too bad, but his mother was long dead and there was no place for him there either.

What he really wanted right now was to be alone.

There had been a mountain somewhere between here and his original home that he'd often imagined climbing when he'd felt like this in his childhood. Up on the very top of that high mountain he'd be all alone, as if there were no other shiki in the entire world.

Without a conscious decision he sat up and transformed into his serpent shape. He'd just fly there and see whether that mountain was still there.

He'd never really been on the top of his mountain. It was too dangerous a place for a young fire serpent. Covered in deadly snow and ice that would slowly leech all the warmth and energy of the sun from his body until he was too weak to move and froze to death.

Weakened as he was by loss of blood the trip took quite a bit longer than he remembered, but he was already in the air now so he didn't need to climb. It was just a tiny dive and then he landed on top of the mountain in pristine white snow.

Beautiful, if only he weren't so tired.

He lay in the snow and blinked lazily up into the sky. Yes, this was indeed a good place to get away from the world. A good place to die.

"Good bye, Tsuzuki." he whispered to the cold air.

Far away in Meifu Tsuzuki dropped his third piece of rice cake and sat up straight.

"Tsuzuki?" Hisoka asked his partner. "Is something wrong?"

It wasn't like Tsuzuki to leave free food uneaten.

"Touda." Tsuzuki mumbled. "Touda? ... I need to get to GenSouKai. Right now."

"Why?" asked Hisoka. "What's wrong Tsuzuki?"

"You can't just leave in the middle of the annual department dinner." Tatsumi stated sternly.

"It's Touda." Tsuzuki explained. "I can feel my connection with him weakening, fading ... It's like ... I've never felt anything like this before. I don't know what it means, but it feels wrong. I have to check it out."

By the time they finally opened a gate for him however he could no longer feel Touda at all. 


	49. Chapter 49

Title: Waiting Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: SohRyu, Kichin, Taimou, Tenku, Suzaku, Rikugou, Byakko, Genbu, Tsuzuki (Touda and Tenkou mentioned)  
Prompt: 006. Hours.  
Word Count: 815.  
Rating: PG Summary: Well, they found Touda alive, but will he survive?  
Author's Notes: Sequel to my post for Ends. JJ insisted I couldn't leave that one as it was, so ... This didn't turn out entirely as I planned it either, but I like it this way.

Somehow SohRyu had ended up leaning against the wall next to the door staring at the opposite wall of the corridor. He didn't remember when he'd stopped pacing. It didn't matter anyway. His pacing or leaning or whatever else would not make a difference. If Touda was going to die, he'd die no matter what he did.

SohRyu had no medical knowledge. Having two children had taught him how to stick a band aid on a skinned knee and like most warriors he could bandage minor cuts. For anything else there were doctors he could call upon.

That lack of knowledge made him feel rather helpless right now, though, and he tried to think of anything else he might do for Touda. He'd already supplied a doctor and bedroom. Food and drink would be pointless as the serpent was unconscious and wouldn't be able to eat or drink.

Warmth would do him good, but the room was equipped with a cosy fireplace and ample firewood. Touda would like that, if he ever woke up. Fire serpents loved to laze about in front of fireplaces.

When Tenkou was sick he usually bought her flowers and toys. Touda wouldn't appreciate either, he suspected. Some books to read might help him pass the time once he was feeling better, but right now they'd be more pointless than food.

Was there something he might tell Touda when he woke up? Some words that might help?

He still didn't understand how it had come to this. It couldn't be his fault!

So he had been a little unfriendly this morning, but surely being relieved of computer duty couldn't have driven Touda into a suicide attempt. 'Please,' he thought to whom he didn't know. 'Don't let it be my fault.'

Kijin walked up to him, slung his arms around him and buried his face in his robes.

"Any news?" he asked barely audible through the fabric.

SohRyu shook his head. "There wasn't any permanent harm from the cold, but the doctor said he's lost a lot of blood. It remains to be seen whether he's strong enough to recover from that. If he survives the night, he'll be alright."

"It's been hours." Kijin sniffed. "If he dies it's all my fault."

"No it's not." SohRyu said automatically. "Of course it isn't."

"If I hadn't been so arrogant and actually listened when he tried to explain the computer to me, I'd have known how to locate him without all the trial and error. Then we'd have found him much faster and he wouldn't have lost as much blood."

"And if Tenku hadn't kicked him out, he'd never have disappeared in the first place." Taimou continued. "Or if I'd let him stay with me when he asked..."

"So now it's my fault the damn serpent's either homicidal or suicidal?" Tenku snapped. "It'd be only for the best, if he died. He's way too dangerous to keep around."

The palace was too defensive about it, SohRyu thought. Was he feeling guilty as well?

"Anyhow, it's Suzaku's fault." Tenku continued. "She's the one that hurt him."

"It was just a little cut," Suzaku snapped. "And he was fine when he left my palace. There was nothing to indicate that he couldn't handle it on his own."

"If he could still fly all the way to that mountain, he could have made it to any one of us and asked for help," Rikugou agreed. "He chose not to, because he didn't think he'd be welcome."

"I should have talked to him after all," Byakko's voice came from somewhere below. "I could have spared a few minutes without being late. Maybe all he needed was someone to listen for a moment."

SohRyu looked down. The tiger was lying on the floor with a sobbing Tsuzuki sprawled over him. At any other time he'd have chided them for their undignified behaviour. The protector of the west was not supposed to be cuddled like a stuffed toy.

"Most likely not." Genbu said. "Things like that don't happen overnight. He must have been depressed for quite some time. Maybe it was the guilt over all those people he killed, or perhaps all the time he spent alone in prison damaged him worse than we realised. Shiki have been known to go mad from much less time in solitary confinement."

"He's a serpent." SohRyu reminded him. "They're loners by nature."

"Sky serpents aren't overly social." Genbu confirmed. "But not necessarily loners either and they do get bored with nothing to do and nobody to talk to."

Tsuzuki sobbed louder. "Poor Touda. If only I'd been there."

"It'll be alright, Tsuzuki," Byakko purred soothingly. "You did everything you could. He'll make it."

Yes, hopefully he would, but it would be long terrible hours before they'd know for sure. Still SohRyu didn't feel like talking.

He went back to staring at the wall. 


	50. Chapter 50

Title: An Agreement Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki Prompt: 030. Death(s.  
Word Count: 473.  
Rating: PG Summary: Tsuzuki and Touda talk about suicide.  
Author's Notes: This was originally supposed to lead to Touda questioning Tsuzuki's first suicide. Then it was going to be about Tsuzuki understanding Touda's motivations better than Touda himself. How those two turned it into what it is now I have no idea, but JJ I believe this is what you asked for: I did the Death prompt without killing either of them! is quite proud of self

Tsuzuki settled down on the bed beside Touda. "So, do you feel any better?"

"I'm perfectly fine." Touda grumbled.

"That's not what the doctor says." Tsuzuki pointed out, leaning down to be closer to the serpent.

"That's from the cold," Touda allowed. "It drained my energy and that takes a few weeks of soaking up warmth to rebuild. And it's very nice and warm here. Now, if only people wouldn't come in and disturb my rest all the time, I couldn't be more comfortable."

Tsuzuki brushed a hand through Touda's hair. "You scared us."

Touda shrugged. Well, as much as he could while lying on his back at least.

"None of us want you dead, you know."

Another shrug.

"Touda ..."

"They'd be better off without me and they know it."

"Touda!"

"No, really. And you'd be fine. You've got eleven shiki of the highest level. You don't need me. My power's usually overkill anyway. If you absolutely need fire, Suzaku's the safer choice."

"It's not about powers, or safety, or fire." Tsuzuki said gently rubbing Touda's arm. "You're my friend. I'd miss you, not your stupid powers."

Touda squirmed uncomfortably. "Well, they wouldn't. And you'd get over it."

"No, I'd always miss you. I love all twelve of you, no matter whether anyone needs that many shiki or not. You're my friends, my ... my family."

Touda turned away from him, so Tsuzuki started to rub his back.

"Better family without me," the serpent said. "But that's not why I did it."

"Then why?"

There was a long silence. Then: "I don't know."

"Don't you?"

"I never really decided to do it. I just ... went to see that mountain and then I felt like lying down on that glacier ... and ... I just did it. I wasn't thinking I wanted to die or anything. Just ... just that it was a really nice glacier. ... I know that sounds weird. You can't understand. None of you can."

"No, I do understand," Tsuzuki said continuing to rub Touda's back.

"I died by suicide," he continued a little later. "Didn't think I was hurting anyone but myself back then either, but now I don't know. You couldn't see how badly you scared everybody, so maybe I couldn't either. You just ... We keep visiting, because we want you to know that you scared us and you'll hurt us, if you do it again."

Silence.

"Promise me that you won't try to kill yourself ever again, Touda. Please, just promise me that."

More silence.

"Not that." Touda said finally. "But I'll promise you something else. I promise you that I'll try to stay alive as long as you do. Once you're gone I'm free to go whenever I like."

"So I'll just have to live forever?"

Touda smiled. "I suppose you could try." 


	51. Chapter 51

Title: Safe Distance Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda (Tsuzuki is mentioned)  
Prompt: 005. Outsides.  
Word Count: 338.  
Rating: Maybe PG-13 for mention of suicide.  
Summary: Two (not) so very different ways to hide the pain.  
Author's Notes: Touda and Tsuzuki seem like opposite personalities at first glance, but are they?

He showed everybody the same hostile exterior. It kept them at a distance and that was how he preferred it. Once you let people close they could hurt you.

Well, to be perfectly honest, they could hurt him anyway, but at least he never let on when they had. If you let people get close to you, they soon learned what would hurt you the most and sooner or later they'd use that knowledge.

He told them that he considered them enemies and they regarded him as their enemy in return. A simple arrangement without complicated emotions getting in the way. Enemies were expected to hurt each other, no unexpected shots out of the blue.

What was even better was that he wasn't expected to care about them either. It was a pure business relationship.

The only one he couldn't declare an enemy was his master, but that didn't mean he had to be friendly to Tsuzuki either. He treated him just as coldly as everybody else most of the time. Still Tsuzuki was a problem. He just wouldn't stop being nice!

Despite all the times Touda had managed to chase him off, Tsuzuki always came back claiming he liked being around him.

Some people said that Tsuzuki was just too superficial and easygoing to really feel hurt by rejection or hold a grudge. Touda knew better.

Tsuzuki might play the easygoing fool, but it was merely a mask to hide his true feelings. Else why would he have died by suicide? If he was so happy and superficial nothing should have been able to hurt him enough to want to die.

But it wasn't Touda's place to explain that to the others. It would have looked too much as if he actually cared. He couldn't help his master with his pain, because to help would have meant to let him close and, if you let someone close you started to care for them and Touda wouldn't, couldn't, didn't care for anybody.

Sometimes he almost believed it himself. 


	52. Chapter 52

Title: A Day At The Beach Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou, Kijin, Byakko, Tsuzuki, Rikugou, SohRyu, Genbu (Suzaku mentioned)  
Prompt: 051. Water.  
Word Count: 624.  
Rating: G Summary: Tsuzuki wants his shiki to spend more time together, so he decided to take them to the beach. Unfortunately it isn't working out exactly as planned.  
Author's Notes: Should I have posted this for Summer instead? But I'm already using SohRyu for Blue. ... Now what else could I do about Summer?

Why in the world Tsuzuki had insisted on going to the beach Touda had no idea. Okay, so the sun was burning down heating up the sand offering the best sunbath he'd had in centuries, but what good did that do, if he wasn't left in peace to enjoy it.

"Come on, play with us!" Tenkou pulled on his tail tip.

"Play what?" Maybe they'd let him sunbathe if he could claim the children had exhausted him?

"Pearl divers and pirates." Kijin stated as if that were obvious.

Divers didn't sound too good to Touda. "How do you play that?"

"Well, the pearl divers dive and bring up stones or seashells or whatever they find down there and when they come back up the pirates attack them and try to wrestle away the pearls before they reach the land," Tenkou explained excitedly. "It's great fun."

"No." Touda shook his head. "No way. You're just looking for an excuse to dunk me and splash me all wet."

"We could play water-ball." Byakko suggested. "You don't have to put your head under water for that."

The tiger liked splashing about as long as he could still breathe freely.

"I'd still get splashed." Touda frowned.

"Then lets just swim a bit." Tsuzuki suggested. "The water looks wonderfully cool."

Touda shuddered. "Too wet. I don't do wet well."

Tsuzuki blinked at him. "Huh? But I thought ... Isn't Byakko the one who's supposed to be water-shy?"

"No, that's house cats," Kijin 'supplied. "Tigers like bathing."

"And serpents don't?" Tsuzuki guessed.

"That depends," Rikugou answered. "I don't think this has anything to do with his form, though. Why do you think Suzaku volunteered to stay home and supervise the city? Fire shiki only like water for drinking. And salt water isn't drinkable."

"It cancels their powers," SohRyu said smugly.

"Not mine," Touda stated. "Not completely. Hellfire's much too strong."

"Want to test that hypothesis?" SohRyu challenged and Tsuzuki quickly stepped between the two.

"Now, now, we didn't come here to fight," he chided. "Are you sure you don't want to cool down a little on such a hot day?" he coaxed Touda. "I promise you won't need your powers today."

"Absolutely sure," Touda grumbled. "The temperature's fine with me. I'd be perfectly happy, if you weren't all dead set on spoiling my chance to enjoy it."

"Huh?" made Tenkou.

"Oh! Sorry," said Kijin.

"But if you don't want to swim, how can you enjoy the heat?" Tsuzuki asked.

"He means it, Tsuzuki," Kijin explained. "He likes heat. Snakes love baking in the sun and fire snakes doubly so."

Tsuzuki's face fell. "Oh, and I thought for once we could all do something together."

Genbu shook his head. "That won't work. We're just too different. The rest of us can go swimming, though and Touda will be just as happy alone on the beach."

Tsuzuki sighed but complied. This wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind. He'd hoped that, if he got them to play together, Touda would learn to feel more at home with the others and in time even befriend them, but forcing him into something he didn't enjoy was probably not a good start.

Maybe he'd have better luck with a camping trip? Certainly Touda would enjoy sitting together around a nice campfire. He'd try that next time he decided before running into the water after the others.

Five minutes later his worries about the serpent were forgotten as he was engaged in a heated water fight with Byakko.

Touda could hear the laughter and squealing from a distance, but was much too content right where he was to check what was going on behind him. It was indeed a perfect day as far as he was concerned. 


	53. Chapter 53

Title: Bad Luck Day Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, SohRyu, Tenkou, Kouchin, Suzaku, Genbu and Rikugou Prompt: 059. Food.  
Word Count: 1020.  
Rating: G Summary: SohRyu made Touda eat with the family. It might have been a mistake.  
Author's Notes: No, SohRyu isn't actually picking on Touda here. He's trying to be nice and include him in the normal day to day life in the palace. Unfortunately Touda isn't quite up to it.

Some days just went wrong from the get go. He probably should have stayed in bed that morning.

He'd run into SohRyu when he'd slipped into the kitchen to get some breakfast and the dragon had been in a bad enough mood to accuse him of stealing food and order him to eat with the rest of the palace's inhabitants. And he hadn't meant the servants either.

Servants weren't all that bad. They frowned at him most of the time and were reluctant to obey his commands, but they didn't dare show their dislike openly. They might do a bad job, but never outright attack him. With them he still had some kind of status, though even Touda himself wasn't sure exactly what it was.

Eating with the family, though ... well, at least Tenkou seemed to like him. She'd proudly shown him that she knew how to fold a paper aeroplane from her napkin and Touda had in turn shown her how to make a boat.

In hindsight that hadn't been too clever, because once Tenkou had messed up her brother's napkin, Kouchin had refused to donate his and Tenkou had nicked her father's instead.

SohRyu had been furious. Apparently origami fell under things not done or mentioned in polite conversation. Neither Touda nor Tenkou were particularly good at polite conversation. Kijin knew most of the rules, Touda suspected, but wasn't a particular fan of the custom and liked to push the limits. Tenkou due to her age was allowed to get away with not knowing. Touda's problem was his low birth, though, and that earned no understanding at all.

He'd fled SohRyu's wrath even though he hadn't finished the meal yet and found that a virus had gotten into his computer. At least the several hours required to hunt down every last infected file and performing damage control had provided him with a good excuse to skip lunch, but the servants had received strict orders not to allow him any food outside of the official meals, so by the time dinner rolled around he felt famished.

He absolutely had to participate in this meal, but the moment he entered the dining room he realised his bad luck had struck again. SohRyu was entertaining guests. Not just any guests at that, but Suzaku, Genbu and Rikugou.

Could the situation get any worse?

It could. They made him sit between Suzaku and Rikugou rather than next to Tenkou.

He tried to tell himself that it hadn't been a deliberate move to hurt him. Most likely SohRyu had advised the servants not to place him next to Tenkou for a formal meal. They did tend to incite each other to 'nonsense' like the origami session at breakfast and SohRyu didn't like to be embarrassed in front of his fellow protectors.

That he'd ended up next to Suzaku was probably just an oversight, or lack of knowledge on the part of whoever had arranged the seating order.

He couldn't expect any help from either neighbour, though. Tenkou might not be an expert in polite conversation, but she understood the basics of table manners well enough. As in: What fork was he supposed to use first?

Rikugou would ridicule him, if he asked, Suzaku would probably lie. Or attack. Tenkou would have told him. Now he'd have to watch the others surreptitiously and guess when he couldn't see it.

Why in the world they couldn't eat a formal dinner with good old fashioned chopsticks he had no idea either. They had a much greater tradition than silverware, were comfortable and easy to handle. And you could get through a meal with only a single pair.

At least the situation had one redeeming quality. It made him so nervous he didn't feel hungry anymore. That meant he could get away with eating very little, though he'd probably regret it during the night.

For a while he hoped on the unlikely chance that Tsuzuki would summon him out of the damn dinner. Not only would he get away from the only outwardly friendly conversation, he'd also have a chance at a meal in JiChou or perhaps Meifu. Tsuzuki could almost always be tempted into eating, enjoyed sharing his food with his shiki and had about as little regard for silverware and table manners as Touda, Tenkou and Kijin put together.

He cast a pleading look at Tenkou who was caught between SohRyu and Genbu which meant she was currently expected to participate in a discussion of the ethics of politics. A least the look he got back was just as desperate as his own.

Kijin had ended up between Kouchin and Suzaku and was actually doing his best to keep the phoenix's attention on him. If he failed at that task for only a moment, the dinner would probably turn into a real disaster as Suzaku rarely bothered to even pretend to being nice to Touda.

Between SohRyu and Kijin Kouchin was concentrating solely on the food. It wasn't his place to engage the protector of the east in conversation, if SohRyu didn't invite him to and he was probably aware of the consequences distracting Kijin would most likely have.

Rikugou was on a tirade about SohRyu's suitability, or the lack thereof, for leading people. No new arguments there, but if SohRyu noticed, Touda was caught between a rock and a very hard place. If he tried to defend SohRyu, he'd probably anger Rikugou, whose method of revenge was usually unpredictable to him. If he agreed with Rikugou, he'd anger SohRyu whom he depended on for room, board and freedom. Neither of the two liked him in the first place.

In a subconscious attempt to flee the situation he inched away from Rikugou and ended up bumping elbows with Suzaku.

"You worthless, treacherous snake!" The table cloth went up in flames and Touda just barely managed to jump out of his seat before Suzaku's sword clashed down on it.

With his luck they'd all blame him for ruining this dinner as well as breakfast. Why couldn't SohRyu just have left him to eating kitchen scraps? 


	54. Chapter 54

Title: Serpent in the Rain Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou (Kijin, SohRyu, Suzaku and Rikugou mentioned)  
Prompt: 066. Rain.  
Word Count: 995.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Tenkou's just too cute. Even Touda can't resist her.  
Author's Notes: For some reason the little Tenkou in my head considers Touda her favourite babysitter.

"Come out and play with me Touda?" Tenkou looked at him with big pleading eyes.

"Can't you play with your brother?" It had been a long day.

Well, actually it hadn't. He'd only been working for seven hours, which made it an unusually short workday, but he felt exhausted nevertheless.

Tenkou shook her head sadly "Father called for him. And he doesn't like to play ball with me all that much anyway. Will you play ball with me, please?"

She was too good at those cute little girl looks. Touda cast a look out the window.

"Can't we play inside?" he tried to bargain.

"Not ball games." She shook her head. "Father won't allow it. He says those are outside games."

"It's raining," Touda pointed out.

It wasn't a hard rain, just a slight drizzle really, but it was still water. He'd get wet, if he went outside.

"Yes," Tenkou beamed at him. "It's all nice and fresh and wet outside. Perfect weather to play in."

He tended to forget that she was a water shiki. She was too young to use her powers much, so he didn't get a lot of reminders, though the main reason for his forgetfulness in this case was probably that he didn't want to think about it. Tenkou was the only one of Tsuzuki's other shiki that would call him friend.

For some miraculous reason she actually liked him and he didn't want to lose that, yet water and fire shiki were never a good combination. They were natural enemies and the more Tenkou grew into her powers the more it would become an issue. It was better not to think of it. Right now she was still an innocent little girl that wanted his company. He should enjoy it while it lasted and it wasn't that much of a rain.

"Alright, I'll play," he agreed. "Where's the ball?"

Tenkou blushed. "Up in a tree," she admitted. "Not very high up, though. Just a bit too high for me. Kichin would have reached it, if Father hadn't called for him just then. You probably won't even have to climb."

He definitely wouldn't. Even if it was too high for his human shape, he was a big serpent and no tree could be higher than he could fly.

"Just show me the tree."

Tenkou happily grabbed his hand and pulled him along.

"There!" she pointed. "See?"

He nodded. It was lying on the lowest branch of a cherry tree. Easy enough. He'd probably reach it in a jump, but then he didn't feel like jumping.

Instead he transformed and ducked under the tree. A quick upwards thrust of his head and he nosed the ball off the branch. Tenkou caught it with a happy squeal then hugged him for thanks.

He stayed perfectly still until she drew away with a slight frown.

"Why are you hissing?" she asked.

Huh?

"I'm not," he said puzzled. Then he remembered. "Oh, you mean that. That's not me, that's the water evaporating when it touches my skin."

"Evaporating?" Tenkou wondered. "But why?"

Touda shrugged. "I'm a fire shiki. Water interferes with my powers, weakens me, so my powers automatically erect a sort of heat shield against it." It wasn't easy to put it into simple words a child could understand. "I can't turn it off."

Tenkou's eyes grew even wider in horror and she tried to shield him with her hands. "Does it hurt?"

"No, never. I don't even feel a slight rain like this," he assured her. "As long as the shield gets all the water it's just fine. It takes a real downpour before any water can get through and even then it doesn't hurt. It's just an uncomfortable cold feeling and I get tired and slow."

"And when you go swimming?"

Touda shuddered. "When I get really wet, I lose power. I've heard other fire shiki tell tales of being completely powerless for days after falling into water, but I don't think it can happen to one of my level. At least I've never lost more than three levels that way."

"Three levels!" Tenkou gasped horrified. "But then any higher level water demon could ..."

"Water demons, like water shiki, can be similarly weakened by fire," Touda explained. "That's why SohRyu and Suzaku never fight. Their powers would cancel each other out and leave them both weakened for the rest of the day."

"Father sometimes attacks you, though," Tenkou pointed out.

He hadn't thought she'd know that. It didn't happen that often and almost never in public. Usually it was over in the blink of an eye as well, just a quick flare of anger, a blast of water and then SohRyu would turn his back on him and walk out.

"Those aren't fights," he tried to explain it away. "That's just ... Well, when he gets very angry I suppose his powers boil up just like any other shiki's and he needs to let them out."

"He doesn't throw them at Suzaku, though," Tenkou said. "Or Rikugou, even though Rikugou makes him angry much more often than you do."

Did he? Touda had never noticed that. He knew that Rikugou liked goading SohRyu of course, but he'd always assumed that it was much more playful than his own relationship with the guardian of the east. Maybe Tenkou was too young to realise the difference between friendly teasing and real hatred.

"Rikugou would fight back and then somebody might get hurt," he told her. "SohRyu wouldn't want that."

"And you don't fight back?" Tenkou frowned. "Why not?"

"The control device won't let me attack another shiki."

"Control device? What control device?"

Touda stared at her. "You don't know?"

Tenkou shook her head. "No. What is it?"

He hesitated.

"I don't like to talk about it." he told her after a moment. "And weren't we going to play ball?"

He did not want to lose his only friend before he had to. 


	55. Chapter 55

Title: Chemistry Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda (Suzaku, SohRyu, Genbu, Rikugou and Byakko mentioned)  
Prompt: 052. Fire.  
Word Count: 489.  
Rating: G Summary: The interaction of various elements.  
Author's Notes: I don't know how this one happened, or what it's really about. I set out to write about Touda and Suzaku, but ended up with Byakko somehow. (Well, he is one pretty kitty. cuddle)

He was a fire shiki, so one should assume that he liked fire and he did. He loved his black flames no matter how deadly hot and dangerous they were.

There was no danger in them for him anyway. He had complete control over his powers, on a level most other shiki could only dream of. Only once in his life had that control actually slipped, though the results had been devastating.

Still, even despite that he loved the black flames, liked to play with them, watch them ...

He also loved the cooler orange flames of a fireplace. They too danced quite nicely and it was wonderful to lie next to the fire on a cold day warming himself and watching the flames. He was fire and even though those weren't his flames they were still part of him in a way all fire was.

With one exception: He did not get along well with other fire shiki. His relationship with Suzaku was the most obvious example, but he didn't do much better with other fire types. They just didn't have enough power to seriously bother him.

It was a well known fact among other shiki that fire and fire weren't a good combination. Most of them were quite puzzled by it, though as the other elements tended to get along best with their own kind. It left the fire shiki rather lonely at times.

To make things worse fire and water didn't mix well either, which explained his problems with SohRyu well enough. The two elements cancelled each other out which was pleasant for neither side.

What he couldn't explain with his fire nature was his problem with earth types like Rikugou and Genbu. Earth shiki were known for their ability to get along just fine with everybody.

Well, everybody but Touda, it seemed.

The one element Touda actually liked besides his own was air. Maybe it was his love of flying, or maybe it was the way a gust of wind could fan a flame, make it rise to even greater power.

Fire and air shiki friendships weren't rare, but not overly popular among the other elements. They were said to encourage each other into mischief and have this overly daring, devil may care attitude. Usually they left the water and earth shiki, and often even other air and fire shiki, quite exasperated.

With an air shiki for your friend you were sure to get into all sorts of trouble and the last thing Touda could afford in his position was more trouble. From that point of view it was probably lucky that he had no friends among his fellow shiki, because if he could have chosen anyone out of the entire population of GenSouKai to be his best friend, he'd have picked Byakko and there was just no telling what calamities an air god and a hellfire shiki would land themselves in together. 


	56. Chapter 56

Title: Sight Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko, Genbu, SohRyu Prompt: 040. Sight.  
Word Count: 316.  
Rating: G Summary: Byakko wants to see where Touda grew up.  
Author's Notes: I'm not completely happy with this one, though I still like the idea.

"There's a better place to rest about half a mile from here," Touda said. "We should keep going."

SohRyu gave the serpent a measuring look, then nodded. "Okay, we can go that much further."

"How do you know that place's really there?" Byakko asked. "It's not on the map."

"That's no map, it's a vague sketch," Rikugou snapped. "I'll take Touda's word over it anytime."

"Thanks." Touda wasn't fool enough to take this as a show of confidence. It was a swipe at the map nothing more.

"Yeah, but how would you know, Touda? We've never been here before," Byakko insisted.

"You haven't," Touda shrugged it off. "I was born not far from here. I used to play here as a child."

"Really?" Byakko perked up. "Can we visit Touda's home town then?"

"I suppose, if you like," SohRyu allowed.

Touda blinked. "Whatever for?" He didn't want to go back there. There were too many memories attached to the place and the few good ones hurt worse than the bad ones now. "It's nothing special."

"But it's your home town and I'd like to see it," Byakko insisted and several others nodded in agreement. "You could show us around. Introduce us to people."

"There's nobody living there anymore," Genbu interrupted. "It was destroyed in the war and the survivors abandoned it. Not enough left to be worth rebuilding, I guess."

He sent Touda an apologetic look, but the serpent didn't even notice. He hadn't even known, but it didn't matter. Places and people that had meant a lot to him had been destroyed in the war, some by his own hand. He didn't have any tears left for a place full of painful memories.

"There's probably nothing to see, but overgrown foundations," he told Byakko.

The next morning Byakko talked Genbu into taking him to see the place anyway. He was unusually quiet when they returned. 


	57. Chapter 57

Title: Banquet Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko (Tsuzuki, Tenkou, SohRyu, Suzaku, Taimou and Rikugou mentioned)  
Prompt: 012. Orange.  
Word Count: 994.  
Rating: G Summary: Byakko seeks out Touda with an unexpected offer.  
Author's Notes: Yes, this would have fit the sunset prompt much better, but then what would I do for orange?

Touda sat on the highest roof of the palace watching the sunset turn the city into a magical land of orange hues and black shadows. He couldn't see himself, but assumed that he'd be the blackest of them all. A tiny spot of complete darkness in a golden wonderland.

He could create something even darker by calling on his flames, but it was probably a bad idea. People would see and be scared. The best that could happen was probably that they'd assume that he was fighting a demon that was attacking the city. Someone would raise the alarm and they'd interrupt the banquet they were having downstairs in Tsuzuki's honour and come out to join the fight. Then he'd have to explain to Soh Ryu and Tsuzuki why he'd called on his powers without need. Hellfire was too deadly to play with, they'd tell him, even if you had perfect control.

"There you are." A figure gleaming orange as if it were on fire landed on the roof beside him.

For one confused heartbeat Touda thought he was looking at an unfamiliar fire-shiki, then his brain caught up and he recognised the familiar shape that had been coloured by the light.

"Byakko?" The white colouring of the guardian of the west was perfect for this trick of the light.

"You look like a mystical fire-demon in this light," Byakko commented.

"I'm black," Touda stated. "I'm always black."

"Oh, that's right." Byakko settled down beside him a little cautiously. He didn't spend as much time on rooftops as Touda did. "You can't see yourself." He grinned. "The sunset's turned your hair all orange. Looks like a flame, or a signal flare perhaps. And there are orange highlights on your skin as well. If I didn't know you, I might get scared." He laughed.

"You're all orange yourself," Touda pointed out. "And I do mean all. Almost mistook you for Suzaku."

Byakko winced. "Ouch!"

That was an odd reaction.

"I thought you're friends?" Had something happened between the two guardians? If so it might mean trouble, though Byakko was a forgiving soul. He probably wouldn't act on it.

"What? Of course we are," Byakko assured him. "But I'm not blind or deaf, you know. I know how you feel about her."

"Oh," said Touda unable to think of an answer. He puzzled over the implications of Byakko's reaction. Why would it bother the tiger to be compared to someone Touda didn't like? It wasn't even like he'd compared their personalities.

"It's not her looks that I have a problem with," he felt compelled to explain.

"I know."

The sun had sunk a little deeper leaving the world more shadowy and less orange.

"Why aren't you at the banquet?" Byakko enquired. "Tsuzuki asked after you."

"I ... wasn't hungry."

"Yeah, right. And I am Suzaku." Byakko snorted at that thought. "What's the real reason? And don't tell me you're avoiding Tsuzuki, because I know that's not true."

Touda sighed. "I didn't want to spoil his party."

"Spoil it? How? By attending?" Byakko laughed again, an unsure incredulous laugh. "He missed you."

"Do you remember the last time we all ate together?" Touda prompted.

"You mean when Suzaku hacked your chair to pieces?" This time the laugh was more confident. "That sure was something."

"Exactly." Touda confirmed flatly.

Byakko stopped laughing and looked at him.

"Oh. I suppose it's less funny when the sword's coming right at you, huh?"

"Plus getting chewed out by SohRyu afterwards for provoking her," Touda admitted. The others hadn't witnessed that part. "I didn't mean to. It's just that she finds the very sight of me provoking."

"I know. It was a stupid oversight that the servants placed you right next to her. I'm sure it won't happen again." Byakko smiled brightly at him. "Or, if it does, you can simply take my seat. I'm fine with her."

"I shouldn't sit next to Taimou either. Or Rikugou or SohRyu," Touda said. "Or Tenkou."

Byakko blinked. "What happened between you and Tenkou? She's just a little girl."

"Origami," Touda admitted. "Cherry stone spitting competition, a pirate game and then there was our food fight."

"Food fight?"

"Well, SohRyu insisted she had to empty her plate and that I should set a good example, but neither of us wanted cold overcooked peas. So Tenkou started sneaking her peas onto my plate. I shovelled them back. We'd have been fine, if SohRyu hadn't heard us giggle."

"Oh, and then there was the time she asked me to tell her a scary story," Touda added after a moment. "And for some reason SohRyu also objected to building a pudding tower. He says I'm a bad influence on his children."

"So you don't just have a problem with not getting on with people, but also with getting on too well?"

He had to think that over. He'd never regarded the problem from this angle before.

"I suppose so," he allowed.

"You know what," Byakko smiled at him. "Let's go back down there. You can just stick close to me and we'll avoid Suzaku. As long as you remember not to play with Tenkou and are polite to everybody, they'll be polite as well. They don't want to ruin Tsuzuki's party any more than you do."

"I don't like parties," Touda said, but he did get up when Byakko did.

"Maybe so, but Tsuzuki wants to see you," Byakko returned. "And," he added at a whisper. "I don't think he likes banquets much either. SohRyu's formal events are much too stiff for him."

"The children hate them," Touda confided.

"The children, the servants and at least half of the guests," Byakko agreed. "But attending's in our job descriptions, I guess."

For some strange reason banquets were less difficult when somebody else knew what worried him about them. Or maybe Byakko was much more subtle than he usually let on and managed to run interference for Touda without the serpent ever noticing. 


	58. Chapter 58

Title: The Birds And The Bees Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou, SohRyu, Byakko, Suzaku, Rikugou (Kichin, Tsuzuki and Genbu mentioned)  
Prompt: 027. Parents.  
Word Count: 1.078.  
Rating: PG.  
Summary: Tenkou has an apparently innocent question.  
Author's Notes: Special thanks to ineffableangel for her help with the last bit. It had a really odd end before that.

It was one of those busy days that could bore you to death. There was more than enough to do, but none of it was even remotely interesting or difficult. Mostly Touda was forwarding reports.

When the door opened behind him he almost hoped it would be SohRyu interrupting him with some emergency. Or Rikugou needing some hard to find bit of information. Or ... anyone really as long as it wasn't Suzaku.

When nothing else happened for over a minute he looked over his shoulder to check.

Tenkou was sitting at one of the other terminals watching him.

"Hi there."

"Hi," she returned. "Are you busy?"

"Yes."

"I'll watch."

She did that sometimes when she was very bored. Most of the others tended to throw her out of their workrooms, because they didn't want a child underfoot, but in the beginning Touda hadn't dared to be gruff with SohRyu's children and experience had shown that it was unnecessary.

Tenkou was an almost alarmingly quiet and patient child and never even touched the computer. She was good at keeping out of people's way. Sometimes she sat still for hours waiting quietly until he had time to talk or play.

He finished up the reports and set the search engine to work, then leaned back to indicate that he had a few moments to spare.

"Touda?"

"Yes?"

"What are parents?"

Huh? What in the world?

"Parents is a generic term for mothers and fathers."

"Why?"

Oh, damn it. That was about the worst thing a child could say.

"Because it's shorter than saying mother and father all the time, I suppose. It's more practical to have one word for it."

"Okay."

Oh good. She wasn't going to pester him with an endless string of whys today.

"But what exactly is a mother and father?" she asked after a moment. "I mean, SohRyu is my father. And Kijin's too. He takes care of us and we live with him. But he takes care of you, too. And of Tsuzuki when he visits. You don't call him father, though."

What the? SohRyu his father? Taking care of him? SohRyu hated him! Was Tenkou really that clueless?

"No, he's not. He's my ... employer, I suppose. And you could probably call him my landlord as well." Or maybe owner would be a better word, but he didn't want to discuss that concept with Tenkou. It might confuse her about her relationship with Tsuzuki, if nothing else.

"So what is a father?" Tenkou repeated.

"Well, you see ..." Hadn't SohRyu ever told his children about the birds and the bees? "You know how adults often have husbands and wives, or girlfriends and boyfriends, right?"

"Yes." Tenkou nodded. "But what does that have to do with parents?"

"And most children have a mother and father," Touda continued.

"Yes, but Kijin and I don't. We only have a father."

"Yes, but lets start with the other children, okay?"

"Okay."

"Their mother and father are usually husband and wife. Or at least girlfriend and boyfriend."

"Not always." Tenkou interrupted him again.

"No, but in those cases they once were." Touda hoped she wouldn't challenge that. He didn't like the idea of being the one to explain the concepts of one night stands and rape to SohRyu's innocent little daughter. He'd understood these things when he'd been her age, yes, but he didn't think SohRyu would accept that as an excuse. "So when a big girl shiki and a big boy shiki love each other very much ..."

"They kiss!" Tenkou squealed. "That's icky to watch. Have you ever kissed a girl shiki?"

"Um, yes." No good lying to her about that. She might go and ask her father. "And then when they love each other very, very much, there are some other icky looking things they do."

"What icky looking things? I've never seen them do anything other than hold hands and kiss. Holding hands is not icky."

"That's because those things are so icky that we don't do them where other people can see it. It's ... um ... impolite."

"But what are those things and where do you do them so nobody can see?"

"Um ... well, those things are called sex and you do them in your bedroom and lock the doors so people can't walk in." Touda wondered whether it would have been a good idea to lock the door before having this conversation. If someone walked in on them now, he'd never live it down. "And we don't talk about it in polite conversation either."

"Oh, but have you ever done sex?"

"Yes." No, he was not going to say any more on that matter.

"Who was the girl shiki?"

"We don't talk about that."

"But ..."

"You wanted to know about parents, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Right, so when a girl shiki and a boy shiki do those sex things they can make a new shiki, a child. And then the girl shiki is called that child's mother and the boy shiki is its father."

"And Kijin and I don't have a mother, because we weren't made that way."

"Exactly."

To Touda's relief she let him get back to work after that and he had almost forgotten the whole conversation by dinnertime. Well, not really forgotten, but with the other guardians and Rikugou staying for the meal Touda really had bigger worries.

Or so he thought.

"Touda?" Tenkou asked across the table after finishing her soup.

"Yes, Tenkou?"

"Where is your child?"

"I don't have any children."

"But you said when a girl shiki and a boy shiki do those sex things, they make a child. And you also said you'd done them."

Oh shit!

"And I also told you that you're not to mention that in polite conversation."

Byakko burst out laughing.

"Yes, but ..." Tenkou started up again.

"They don't make a baby every time, Tenkou," stated Rikugou calmly. "Else there'd be way too many babies."

Now Suzaku was laughing as well. Touda breathed a little easier.

"Touda!" SohRyu's shout made the entire hall tremble.

Judging, from the silence at the table, Touda knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was in a world of trouble, but seeing that particular shade of red on SohRyu's face made it almost worth it. SohRyu couldn't really kill him as long as Tsuzuki still needed him, after all.

Or at least Touda hoped so. 


	59. Chapter 59

Title: A Walk In The Gardens Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko (Suzaku, Tsuzuki and Kichin mentioned)  
Prompt: 023. Lovers.  
Word Count: 366.  
Rating: G Summary: Touda walks through the palace gardens and remembers happier days.  
Author's Notes: This was originally for the Colourless prompt, but then Byakko walked in and I actually think I managed a faint hint of Byakko/Touda.

He remembered that he once liked the palace gardens when the cherry trees were in bloom. They had been colourful and beautiful then. This year everything seemed empty and grey.

Not that it surprised Touda. It had been this way every year since Tsuzuki freed him. No matter what he did or where he went the world remained grey and empty.

He remembered walking here with the girl he'd loved long, long ago. He'd still been relatively new to the city, but as a divine commander he'd had access to the palace and grounds and he'd been so excited about the gardens' beauty he'd had to show her.

It had been a wonderful day. They'd laughed and walked and even danced around until their feet had hurt and then they'd lain under a tree and watched the wind play with the blossoms.

Her family had been so proud that she was dating such a high level shiki, even though they'd probably known that the relationship wouldn't last. They had both been so very young. It would be so much more serious, if he were to choose a lover now, but then who in their right mind would want to date him?

He sped up to get the gardens behind him. He was probably needed in the computer room.

"Did you see?" Byakko appeared by his side eyes dancing with mirth.

"See what?" he snapped.

"Kijin." Byakko giggled. "He kissed Suzaku. Right there under that tree."

"Kijin and Suzaku?" Touda shrugged. "It won't last."

Byakko laughed. "I'll give it a week at best, but isn't it cute? First love."

"He'll be hurt," said Touda. "Love always hurts."

Byakko stopped smiling at that and Touda almost wished he could take back his words. Why did he care whether Byakko was happy?

"Do you really think so?" the tiger asked. "I mean always? Even when it's right?"

"It's never right," Touda said. "It's like the cherry blossoms, beautiful for a while, but they never last"

Now he'd really spoiled Byakko's mood, but for some reason the tiger trudged on beside him anyway. Touda sighed. Sometimes he just felt so old. He shouldn't burden the younger shiki with such thoughts. 


	60. Chapter 60

Title: A Guardian's Power Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko, Suzaku (other shiki appearing as well)  
Prompt: 079. Storm.  
Word Count: 885.  
Rating: G Summary: Byakko gets angry .  
Author's Notes: In most of my fics Byakko is shown as a sweet fluffy kitty, playful, lazy and forgiving, but at he's not just a divine commander, he's a guardian beast, equal to Suzaku and Genbu and, if he weren't standing in for the Golden Emperor, also the mighty SohRyu. So here's the other side of Byakko. This time he isn't playing and the claws are unsheathed.

"That is in breach of our agreement, Suzaku!" A gust of wind accompanied the exclamation and sheets of paper scattered across the meeting room. "That village is in my sector!"

Touda blinked at Byakko in surprise. He'd chosen to sit next to the tiger, because of the cat's easy going nature. He hadn't expected such an outburst.

"So what are you planning to do about it, kitty?" Suzaku was clearly having one of those days again. Even though she always enjoyed taunting Touda, she was normally reasonable enough towards the rest. Unless she was spoiling for a fight or in a generally bad mood. Touda wasn't quite sure which was the case right now.

"Are you saying I can't protect my people?"

Touda managed to grab hold of his computer printout detailing the locations of recent wormhole incidents just in time. He pinned it down with both hands and watched the others' papers be thrown about in the air and slammed into walls. This time they didn't come to rest again. The wind slowed a little, but didn't stop.

This was going to be the last topic of the meeting, Touda realised. Without their papers the others here hardly prepared to properly present their issues. He'd seen SohRyu and Suzaku bring a sudden end to a meeting before and even Genbu had once declared it would be better to postpone the discussion to another day and walked out, but Touda had never expected it of the fourth guardian. When Byakko had had enough of a meeting he usually just dozed through the rest of it.

"It's not a big issue," Suzaku said. "You wouldn't risk a war over one little village."

"Not a big issue? You're polluting the entire river. My river!" Byakko shouted and the new gust of wind tore Touda's printout despite his desperate grip.

Touda sighed and let the pieces go. They shot off with the other torn and crumpled fragments of paper whirling through the air. Even more solid objects were no longer able to resist the wind. Cups and glasses smashed against the floor. SohRyu's pen broke as it collided with the wall. If this continued everything that wasn't bolted down would soon be hurtling wildly through the room.

"You have no chance against me pathetic kitten!" Suzaku shrilled and sent a wall of fire racing towards Byakko.

Being a fire shiki himself Touda easily recognised it as a pure show-off move, more bark than bite. Byakko did not.

"Cats eat birds," the tiger stated his eyes cold as ice.

For a moment the air stilled and the whirling papers stopped and began to drop. They didn't have time to reach the floor before a single strong gust of wind gripped them and the firewall and threw them back at Suzaku. Furniture was upturned and a chair thrown through the large window behind SohRyu.

Sitting so close to the source of the gust kept Touda mostly out of it's way, but just a few steps away Rikugou was picking himself up from the floor.

"Byakko! Suzaku! Stop that at once!" Nobody was listening to SohRyu. Maybe if the dragon had stepped in sooner, but it was too late and Touda preferred dealing with the here and now.

He ducked out the door while he still could. With the control device preventing him from using his powers there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop an angry guardian, let alone two. Suzaku's anger usually spent itself almost as fast as it arose, though. This ought to be over soon.

Apparently Byakko had a longer attention span than he'd thought however.

After two hours the wind finally died down. There was nothing left of the meeting room. In fact most of that wing of the palace had suffered serious damage.

Touda found Byakko standing quietly in the middle of the debris. He looked exhausted, but as long as he still had the energy to stand, his power wasn't completely spent either.

"Er ..." said Touda glancing around at the broken bits of plaster.

"That may have been a bit of overkill," Byakko admitted. "Do you think an apology will help, or should I just hide until SohRyu calms down?"

Touda shrugged. "You don't want my advice. I was never good at placating SohRyu."

"Yeah, but you also cause some pretty serious damage whenevder you lose control."

Touda raised an eyebrow, even though he knew Byakko wouldn't be able to see it behind the visor and took another pointed look at the debris.

"I didn't kill anybody," Byakko pointed out. "At least I don't think so. My power's not really practical for killing shiki."

Touda winced and decided to change the topic: "Where's Suzaku?"

"Under there," Byakku pointed at a large piece of wood that might once have been part of the conference table. Or maybe it was a battered door.

Touda peered under it cautiously. It was never a good idea for him to get too close to Suzaku. The bird shiki wasn't about to attack him, though. She just lay there and groaned proving that she was still alive.

"You won," Touda realised. Even Suzaku wouldn't be able to claim this had been a draw.

"Yeah, when it comes down to it, Suzaku isn't so hot after all, I guess." 


	61. Chapter 61

Title: Blue Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, SohRyu, Tenkou, Genbu, Byakko, Rikugou (Suzaku mentioned)  
Prompt: 015. Blue.  
Word Count: 555.  
Rating: G Summary: SohRyu strikes out.  
Author's Notes: Blue is SohRyu and SohRyu is probably the biggest danger to Touda there is so Touda will avoid him whenever possible. But what to write about those two? In the end this is more about the other shiki than about the mighty blue dragon.

"You did what?" SohRyu thundered whirling around to glare at Touda, long blue hair swirling around him.

Touda hesitated. Step back and show his fear of the mighty dragon or stand fast and hope he'll calm down?

The guardian of the east might be a water shiki, but he occasionally demonstrated a temper that equalled that of any fire shiki Touda knew. SohRyu had sentenced people to death out of anger before, even killed some in person. It was unwise to provoke him.

Yet, any weakness he showed in front of his fellow commanders would be exploited. Suzaku at the very least was always looking for an opening, though she'd probably attack him again anyway.

"I gave him an honest answer." He shrugged, playing it cool. "He asked my opinion, not what your official word was."

Maybe he should have delivered that with a little more diplomacy, but it was too late now. Too late even to step back.

In the wink of an eye SohRyu turned into his true shape and all Touda saw anymore was a wall of blue scales.

"You little snake!" the dragon's head roared high above him.

Touda threw his head back to look up at him, just in time to have the first stream of water splash right into his face. He spluttered and coughed, but it wasn't enough to drown him, just throw him to the ground and soak him.

His instinctive reaction produced only a hiss and a lot of smoke ... and a sharp pain in his head from the control device. It wouldn't let him fight another shiki, even just to defend himself.

With a whimper he clutched his head and prepared to die.

"No, Father! Please don't hurt him."

What the? Tenkou?

Sweet little girl. She'd never quite understood what he was, couldn't remember what he'd done. Perhaps her getting in the way would calm SohRyu, but then again she was so small, easily pushed aside ...

"Calm down, SohRyu." Genbu spoke up. "You don't want to kill Touda over this."

"He can't even defend himself." That was Byakko, sounding shaken. "Just look at him."

Two guardians trying to defend him? Him! It was almost to good to be true. The three other guardians together could overrule even SohRyu, but then Suzaku would never speak in his favour. It was all still in SohRyu's hands.

"I'm sure Tsuzuki understands the difference between Touda's opinion and an official statement." Rikugou said calmly. "It's not as if the rest of us never mention it to him when we disagree with your decisions. In fact, he sometimes specifically asks me to tell him what an argument was about."

A distinct growl from the blue dragon.

Touda tried to make himself as small as possible without being obvious about it.

"Those talks are usually quite soothing." Rikugou continued. "Tsuzuki likes to play mediator. I'm sure he'd be devastated to find out that his actions actually aggravated the situation this time."

SohRyu snorted. "The only reason I don't kill him is that it'd rob Tsuzuki of a powerful shiki. Do this again, though, and I will rip out your tongue!"

By the time Touda dared to look up SohRyu was gone. He stifled a sigh of relief and began to wring out his clothes. How he hated water shiki. 


	62. Chapter 62

Title: Fall Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki, SohRyu (Byakko, Suzaku, Rikugou and Genbu mentioned)  
Prompt: 044. Fall.  
Word Count: 926.  
Rating: PG.  
Summary: Even one as powerful as Touda doesn't always win.  
Author's Notes: Touda's expects little of Tsuzuki's other shikigami, but do they really hate him as much as he thinks?

Touda dodged under another shot, then once again tried to gain height. Thanks to its incredible heat his hellfire could be used at a much further distance then most other breath weapons, so if he could manage to get out of his opponent's range, he might have a decisive advantage.

So far the strategy wasn't working. The ... whatever it was ... didn't seem very impressed by anything he had done and it was herding him down with its shots. It had actually frozen the only clear shot he'd gotten at it so far! Hellfire shouldn't freeze.

At first he'd thought the creature was a demon. It looked a bit like one and appeared to be able to control hellfire.

But then it had started freezing things. Freezing!

Demons didn't have cold weapons. Low temperatures just didn't agree with them.

Even among shiki ice was a rare weapon, though some water and air shiki specialised in it, but then this creature didn't even vaguely resemble any shiki Touda had ever seen.

The most obvious candidates for such weapons were angels, of course, but why would Tsuzuki call on him to fight an angel? They were supposed to be friendly and mostly harmless.

He wondered whether even Tsuzuki himself knew what exactly they were up against, but there was no time to ask. The shinigami was somewhere down there anyway, throwing ineffective fuda at the enemy. He might as well be throwing confetti.

Touda decided to take a risk. He banked suddenly causing the next shot to just barely miss him, then shot straight up at top speed.

Up. Up. Up up up ... just how far would be far enough? It would be no use, if he overshot his own range and had to double back leaving the opponent precious seconds to deal with Tsuzuki alone.

There was a sudden jolt and his whole body went numb.

What the? He couldn't move! He was falling, falling helplessly.

For one panicky moment he didn't understand the world at all, then it became all too clear. He'd been hit, simply frozen in midair so fast that his nerves hadn't had time to report the cold at all. The only thing still keeping him conscious had to be the adrenaline from the fight.

That and the terrible fear he felt in that single heartbeat when he realised that when he hit the ground he would shatter like an icicle dropped onto solid rock. And there was nothing at all he could do about it.

Somewhere below him, or maybe just in his mind, he could hear Tsuzuki desperately shouting for SohRyu and thought in an oddly detached way that Byakko would have been the better choice.

The water dragon and ice demon thing would be a stand-off. SohRyu could melt the thing's ice and the thing freeze SohRyu's water. Their weapons were so closely related that they were probably both immune to them anyway.

If the thing could freeze hellfire, Suzaku's more common flames stood no chance. Earth powers might have made the most difference, but Touda hadn't seen either Rikugou or Genbu in battle in centuries. Their interests lay elsewhere and they were probably too out of practice.

The white tiger on the other hand got a lot of use from Tsuzuki and was used to all sorts of opponents. He had a high tolerance for cold and his air powers couldn't be countered by it.

Almost to the ground now and his consciousness was beginning to slip. Hopefully it'd give out before he hit the ground. He didn't want to be aware of shattering into a million tiny black snakicles.

All of a sudden he was drenched with water. Pain flashed through him as his body began to thaw. He screamed and then blackness surrounded him.

It was for the best though. His body was still frozen enough for the sudden impact of scales against scales to be painful when SohRyu caught him. The landing was gentle nevertheless.

"Touda?" With Suzaku and Byakko now double teaming the monster Tsuzuki gave up his futile attempts against it and turned to his injured shiki.

"He should be alright in a few days," SohRyu offered. "And he probably never even noticed that he was hit. Snakes draw their energy from outside warmth, so the cold will have put him to sleep."

"Then, if we just warm him up, he'll be fine?" Tsuzuki asked hopefully.

"Well, if I hadn't had to drench him in water in order to unfreeze him he would." SohRyu said slightly sheepishly. "Water doesn't agree with fire shiki. Our powers should normally cancel each other out, but with him unconscious, he'll probably be very weak for the next few days."

"I had no idea." Tsuzuki admitted. "I thought fire would be a good way to fight ice."

"It would have been, if the ice creature weren't that powerful. And you had no way to predict that it was strong enough to freeze a high level fire shiki. I wouldn't have expected it either." SohRyu nozzled the wet serpent lightly. "No permanent damage done. I'll just take him back to GenSouKai and put him next to an out of the way fireplace or something until he's replenished his energy."

Tsuzuki rubbed the rough black scales gently. They felt as cold as the air around them and he had to forcefully remind himself that Touda wasn't dead.

"Yes, take him home." he agreed. "And tell him that I'm sorry and I'll come see him as soon as I can." 


	63. Chapter 63

Title: An Innocent Question Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou, Genbu Prompt: 090. Home.  
Word Count: 441.  
Rating: G Summary: Tenkou is feeling a little homesick and thinks Touda must be, too.  
Author's Notes: I don't know how Genbu ended up in this ficlet, but I'm glad he did. I forget about him too often.

"Do you miss your home?" Tenkou asked suddenly.

Touda looked down at the little girl in surprise. What had brought that on? She'd been very quiet the whole evening and when he'd sat down by the fireplace she'd silently cuddled up to him and sat starring into the flames until now.

"Do you miss yours, little one?" Genbu asked gently.

"A little," Tenkou admitted. "But it's okay, because it'll be repaired in a few days and then we'll go back. I was just wondering about Touda."

"Tenku isn't my home," Touda told her. "It never was."

"I know," Tenkou nodded eagerly. "Sky serpents live far from here in the mountains. Rikugou showed me a map."

Touda laughed. "That's sky serpents in general. I've never even been there. I was born here. Not here in the city, though. Out in the country, about a day's flight from here."

"So do you miss there then?" Tenkou pushed.

"No, it wasn't really a home either. At least not after my mother ... died." Actually, Touda didn't know for sure that she was dead. He'd never been able to trace where the slave trader had re-sold her. Stupid shiki hadn't put any names in his records and he'd had quite a large number of slaves on that journey.

"Where is your home then?" Tenkou asked.

Touda thought for a moment. "I guess I don't have one."

"That can't be," Tenkou declared. "Everybody has a home."

Was there any place he felt a special connection with? Not his old master's home that much he was sure of. Nor his current little room in Tenku. I was a place to sleep that he'd never quite gotten used to.

"You have to have a home." There were tears in Tenkou's eyes now.

"Of course, dear," Touda reassured her hastily. "It's just ... I don't have a palace of my own like your father or Genbu so ..."

"I think Touda means that GenSouKai in general is his home," Genbu rescued him.

Touda felt almost grateful. "Yes, I suppose that's the best way to put it. So you see, I can't miss my home, because I'm actually still at home."

Tenkou smiled and cuddled even closer. "That's good."

Touda put his arm around her and smiled as well. "Yes it is."

Across the table Touda's eyes met Genbu's. He wasn't smiling. The wise old shiki knew a lie when he heard one, especially when he'd made it up himself.

There was a place Touda felt he belonged, but it wasn't a good place and he didn't want to ever go back there. No, Touda did not miss his cell. 


	64. Chapter 64

Title: Winter Holiday Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko Prompt: 067. Snow.  
Word Count: 556.  
Rating: G Summary: Byakko has an unexpected suggestion for Touda.  
Author's Notes: Winter sports aren't for snakes and I've had Touda collapse in the snow before, so this time it just serves as a convenient excuse.

"It's snowing," Byakko announced happily.

"What?" Touda had been contemplating the problem of predicting the appearance of wormholes which was why he'd come to Byakko's palace in the first place. Well, to be exact SohRyu had sent him here to discuss improving safety measures to prevent unsuspecting shiki from falling into wormholes.

"It is finally snowing," Byakko repeated. "I was almost beginning to fear that we wouldn't get any snow at all this year, but look." He pointed at the window where thick snowflakes were drifting by silently.

Touda sighed. So far the discussion had been going well, but apparently the tiger had reached the end of his notoriously short attention span.

Byakko turned his head at the sound and his face fell. "Oh sorry, I forgot. You don't like snow much, do you?"

"Not particularly." Prolonged exposure to the icy substance could cause him to fall into hibernation.

"You can stay here for the winter," Byakko offered. "I'll have the servants prepare a nice warm room for you."

Touda blinked. "It's not that far back to Tenku," he pointed out. "I can easily manage that much."

"I thought you didn't like it there," Byakko said. "And I bet SohRyu wouldn't dare argue, if we tell him it's because of the snow."

"Why wouldn't I like Tenku?" He didn't. After all the palace shiki had kept him imprisoned for centuries. He'd been trying not to show it, though. His relationships with the other commanders were strained enough from their side. If Byakko had noticed his feelings, though, his attempt to hide them had failed completely. The tiger wasn't the most perceptive shiki around.

"Not because of him," Byakko assured him. "I just always assumed that you didn't like living with SohRyu. He's troublesome enough in meetings. I can't even imagine what it would be like having to deal with him all the time."

"Oh." So the others did have their own problems with SohRyu. Or at least Byakko did. "It's not that bad," he tried to explain, but did sit back down. Maybe a month or two of holiday was just what he needed. Why would Byakko offer to keep him, though? "He isn't around as much as you'd expect. Spends most of his time holed up in his office and I do like the kids a lot. Though they are a handful sometimes."

"It worries Genbu, you know," Byakko confided.

"What? That I get on well with SohRyu's children?" Oh, not that suspicion again. "He'd thought they'd begun to relax a little around him. "I'm not going to eat them."

"He says SohRyu's abusing you as a nanny and the children are starting to catch on and it's estranging them from their father. SohRyu's fault not yours, but Genbu thinks they need more family time together."

"So you want to force them together by keeping me here." Touda stared out at the falling snow. It made sense, but it hurt anyway.

Byakko looked at the floor ears drooping. It was a rare thing to see the cat truly upset.

"I'm offering you a holiday. I'd like to have you here and the kids can visit anyway. I ..."

"Alright."

"Really?" The tiger's hopeful look reminded him of Tsuzuki.

"Really," Touda confirmed and quite automatically smiled at Byakko the way he usually did only for Tsuzuki. 


	65. Chapter 65

Title: Spirit Hunters Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Mostly Touda and SohRyu, but a few others get to show up as well.  
Prompt: 026. Teammates.  
Word Count: 1157.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Tsuzuki pairs up his shiki for a job. Unfortunately he hasn't thought it through in advance.  
Author's Notes: I have become more interested in the relationship of those two lately. There's a lot of story potential there.

"So a lot of the spirits may have escaped," Tsuzuki explained. "But they aren't very powerful and they can only shield themselves against one element each. All of you have elemental powers, so by working in pairs of two different elements you should have no problem with them."

Then he paired them up.

"... and that leaves ... Touda and Suzaku?"

"Bad idea," Hisoka pointed out. "Have you ever heard of planning ahead?"

All except one other pair had already departed. Tsuzuki looked hopefully at SohRyu and Taimou.

"I refuse to be paired with the traitor," Taimou stated calmly.

Touda hissed at her. Frankly he'd have liked to refuse to work with any of them, but he knew how well that would be received.

"Then you'll have to team up with Suzaku," SohRyu announced.

"What!" Taimou shrieked.

At least Touda wasn't the only one who didn't like the bird.

"Different elements, remember?" SohRyu sighed. "They're both fire shiki."

Touda made sure to always fly a few metres behind SohRyu as they searched their assigned area. The spirits seemed to like travelling in small groups. Wherever SohRyu saw one he'd swoop down and dissolve them in a spray of water and Touda would follow a little behind and burn the few that were left.

The method worked fine for them until they came upon a large group that had taken cover in an old warehouse.

SohRyu landed in the street outside and inspected the door.

Hesitantly Touda touched down beside him. The mighty blue dragon turned his head to regard him intently.

Touda drew back nervously.

"That will be a tight fit," SohRyu commented indicating the door with a swipe of his neck. "I'm not sure I can squeeze through without damaging the wall."

"I'll fit," Touda declared. He was a large snake, but not nearly as tall as SohRu and he didn't have any extremities that could get in the way.

"Right, you should fit," SohRyu agreed. "So you'll go in there and I'll guard the door and pick off those that decide to run."

It was ridiculously easy at first. Touda just slipped inside and burned every spirit he caught sight of. Their pathetic little magic bounced off his scales and they didn't last long enough to get into clawing range.

Only when he noticed a spirit that just walked through the flames did he remember that some of them were impervious to fire.

There were eight of those as it turned out and his physical attacks went right through them harmlessly. Unfortunately it worked a lot better the other way around.

The first spirit that reached him sank vicious fangs into his tail. Touda hissed angrily and swung his tail, but it just clung on fangs sinking in even deeper. He writhed and rolled trying to squash the biting and scratching spirits, but they passed harmlessly through the walls and floor. The smallest suddenly launched itself at his face and before Touda could react sharp teeth sank into his nose.

He shrieked in pain and shook his head the sound of splintering wood and breaking glass barely registering in his brain.

The next moment there was a splash and cold water washed over him. It hissed against his scales and then the spirits were gone. Touda blinked the water out of his eyes and found SohRyu's head sticking in through a closed window.

"Well, so much for not damaging the building," he commented indicating the broken and scorched shelves and boxes he'd rolled in to make sure the dragon didn't take it personally.

"Did I," SohRyu hesitated over the word for just a moment. "Hurt you?"

"No, that's all from the spirits," Touda assured him. "You just made me wet."

"Alright then." SohRyu withdrew his head. "Come on out and ... Wait a minute! Shouldn't your fire power prevent you from getting wet?"

"Only to a certain point," Touda returned slipping back out into the street. His wounds hurt with every move. "Else the ocean would dry up the moment I even touch it. When my fire's overpowered I get wet like everybody else."

He shook his head in an attempt to throw off the water that was running over his visor.

SohRyu sat in the street looking at him as if trying to solve a puzzle.

"I didn't throw an ocean at you, though," he remarked. "That would have been a waste of energy with these little spirits."

"It was a highly concentrated burst of water-power," Touda explained. "The visor blocks any sudden increases in my power output. If you want a high level burst from me, you have to let me work up to it slowly."

"So how much power can you call on right now?" SohRyu asked a little worriedly.

"With the visor remaining on? None at all for at least a day. If I could take it off not until I'm dry."

SohRyu cursed.

"What?" The dragon had stopped using strong language ever since he had children.

"We'll have to abort the mission. We don't have a weapon against water shielding spirits," SohRyu decided pointedly regarding the wound in Touda's tail. "I'd rather not play with those things without backup. Can you fly?"

Touda nodded.

"Come on then."

He could fly, but his wounds hurt with every move and he soon fell behind. After a moment SohRyu fell in beside him letting the serpent pick their pace.

"We need to practise this," he announced out of the blue.

"Practise what?" Touda asked. Maybe conversation would distract him from the pain.

"Teamwork," SohRyu explained. "This mission was a disaster. If those spirits had been just a little more coordinated, they could have defeated us easily. We never really covered each other's backs, didn't coordinate our movements and weren't aware of each other's weak points. If you analyse our actions from a neutral point of view we made every foolish mistake short of flying into each other."

Touda tilted his head sidewards and thought it over. "You're exaggerating."

"Maybe," SohRyu allowed. "But it doesn't change the fact that shiki serving the same master should be prepared to fight together. We'll have to practise all the possible combinations."

"There are twelve of us," Touda pointed out. "And I refuse to set foot on any kind of practise ground while Suzaku's there."

The dragon's eyes widened. Touda hadn't refused him since his release from his prison deep within Tenku.

"I suppose," he said very slowly. "That some combinations are just hopeless. And even Tsuzuki must know by now that fire and fire is a bad combination."

They flew on in silence until Tsuzuki and Hisoka came into sight below.

"So we're going to tell him we failed miserably?" Touda asked.

"They ganged up and attacked us from behind," SohRyu suggested. "I did not think it wise to continue the mission with an injured partner." He grinned then added: "You might want to limp a little." 


	66. Chapter 66

Title: Team Training Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko, SohRyu Prompt: 063. Summer.  
Word Count: 641.  
Rating: G Summary: It's too hot for tiger tastes.  
Author's Notes: This is the result of me trying to write a summer story while avoiding another beach scene. Shiki fooling around.

"It's too hot for training," Byakko complained. He was lying in the shadow of a tree with his fur fluffed up to allow the cooling breeze he'd called up to reach his skin. It made him look like a particularly large and soft plush toy.

Touda's tail tip twitched nervously. He'd soaked up the sunshine until he felt he was about to burst with energy and now he couldn't hold still for a moment.

"SohRyu scheduled a training session anyway," he told the tiger. "We need to improve our teamwork. It's important."

At least it was important to SohRyu. Touda didn't have much hope for results, not where he himself was concerned anyway. The others didn't like him and snakes just weren't team players. He was rather comfortable with placid Byakko as a partner, though and he needed to burn off some of this excess energy before he accidentally burned something he shouldn't.

"Lets team-sleep then," Byakko suggested increasing the breeze. He closed his eyes and began to purr softly.

"I can't sleep," Touda admitted nevertheless relaxing a little at the sound. "It's too sunny. I need to move."

"I thought snakes like to lie in the sun?"

"That's when we're cold and need the energy. Now I'm hot and energetic and SohRyu promised I'd get to practise with you."

Byakko re-opened his eyes to glare at Touda and the serpent remembered too late that he was talking to one far above himself in shiki society. It was easy to forget that Byakko was a guardian. He never threw his weight around and was too lazy to argue with his fellow shiki most of the time. He was even friendly towards such unpleasant people as Touda.

Still, just because their master let Touda push him around, didn't mean the tiger had to tolerate his impertinence. Touda began to look for a retreat strategy.

"If you want exercise, you can carry me to the dojo," Byakko suggested and closed his eyes again.

Touda blinked. Was that a joke? A challenge? Or was he serious?

When nothing more happened he decided on option three and very carefully slithered up close to Byakko and wrapped himself around him. The tiger opened one eye and stopped purring when he felt the touch, but didn't seem to mind, so Touda tightened his curl and took off.

It was a lot harder than flying with somebody on his back. He should have paid more attention to balancing the load, but mostly the problem was caused by the unnatural flight position. Still with a little effort he managed to pull the tiger off the ground.

Byakko yelped as he was suddenly jerked into the air.

"What the hell are you doing?" He sounded more surprised than frightened. Being flight capable himself he wasn't afraid of heights and knew he could save himself should Touda drop him.

"Carrying you to the dojo," Touda replied truthfully. "Or alt least I'm trying to. If you don't stop wriggling, I'm going to lose my grip."

"But I'm upside down!" Byakko protested through a burst of laughter.

Despite lots of squealing, giggling and several almost drops they managed to reach the dojo at an almost controlled tumble and landed in a heap at SohRyu's feet.

The dragon didn't appear to be in a laughing mood, though.

"What in the world are you doing?" he demanded.

"Uh ..." started Touda ducking guiltily.

"Just trying whether Touda could carry an unconscious or injured person in his battle shape," Byakko stated with deep conviction. Touda hadn't realised the tiger could lie so well. "I don't recommend it, though. That wasn't comfortable for either of us and would never have worked, if we'd been under attack."

"Byakko's fur tickles," Touda claimed.

SohRyu stared down at them. "I didn't know you were ticklish."

"Well, I suppose I am." 


	67. Chapter 67

Title: A Desperate Situation Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou Prompt: 034. Not Enough.  
Word Count: 922.  
Rating: PG.  
Summary: A nice day outside leads to unexpected trouble.  
Author's Notes: Old plot hedgehog dragged out to play and suddenly I have several new ficlets lining up to be written.

In hindsight it had been a mistake to take Tenkou outside to play, but it was such a beautiful day and she'd kept begging Touda to play ball with her. SohRyu didn't allow ball games inside where there were precious vases to break and even in the dragon's absence Touda didn't think it was worth the risk. After all there was a wonderful park just outside Tenku.

It wasn't as safe as the palace itself, but who'd hide inside all the time, just because a demon had been sighted at the borders? All the other commanders were out there looking for the intruder. In Touda's opinion it as overkill, but then SohRyu had taken Kijin along. It was probably supposed to be a lesson in teamwork.

With all of them out there fighting the demon, what could possibly happen to them here in the well protected capital?

Well, obviously this was what could happen. Said demon apparently hadn't been alone and quite possibly a distraction. One second Touda had been indulging Tenkou by throwing a ball around for her, the next he was the only thing standing between her and two large demons. They were powerful ones, but Tenku could have held them off at least until SohRyu returned to help. In fact, if it weren't for the damn control device in his visor, Touda could have handled them himself.

Hellfire might not work as well on demons as it did on other creatures, but a full on blast of Touda's powers was still enough to seriously burn even a powerful demon like these. Unfortunately the control device didn't allow him full use of his powers unless it was under Tsuzuki's direct orders.

'Tsuzuki assigned SohRyu to protect and lead his shiki in his absence,' Touda thought hard at the control device. 'And SohRyu assigned me to protect Tenkou in his absence. Therefore this is Tsuzuki's order by proxy.'

In fact Tsuzuki had done no such thing. The Golden Emperor had put SohRyu in charge of GenSouKai and all its inhabitants. There had never been a reason for Tsuzuki to meddle with these orders, but Touda hoped that could be interpreted as confirmation.

The control device remained unimpressed, but did allow him to draw on some of his power at least. His blast was just enough to singe the first demon's nose. The demon stopped in surprise, flapped his huge leathery wings, then laughed.

The other demon's answering shot slid harmlessly over Touda's scales. He was immune to his own fire which could burn much hotter than this.

The second demon hesitated slightly confused. Hellfire shiki were rare and not having felt Touda's first blast himself he'd probably mistaken it for ordinary fire.

"Hell-serpent," the first demon explained. "Use your fangs and claws."

He struck out in demonstration opening a long, but not too deep gash in Touda's side. It hurt, but the serpent could take a lot more than this. What he couldn't shrug off as easily was Tenkou's terrified scream at the sight of his blood. Once the demons were through with him they'd go for the girl and Tenkou was much too young to focus her power into a decent weapon.

"Run back inside!" he yelled at her. "You'll be safe in the dungeons."

He doubted that two demons no matter how powerful were even enough to force entry into Tenku, but just in case they did get through the doors it would still take them hours to breach Touda's old cell deep in the heart of the dungeons. It had been built to be inescapable, but that also made it extremely hard to break into.

"But Touda!" There were tears in her voice.

"Go!" Touda yelled as yet another set of claws struck through his defence and sank deep into his side.

He wouldn't be able to take much more of this, but he had to hold the demons back at least until Tenkou was through the palace gates.

Touda ducked out under the next punch and slashed at the first demon's face with his own claws. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tenkou turn and run for the gates, but the demons noticed as well.

They turned to go after her.

Touda jumped at the closer one blindly, desperately trying to hold him back. His claws met something softer than the demon's armour by sheer blind luck and Touda pushed them through causing a stream of blood to gush out over them both. He had no time to consider or check the extent of the damage he'd done to the attacker, though. The second demon was still closing in on Tenkou and he had no way to reach him in time.

All he could throw after him was his much too weak fire.

He pulled together all the power he could reach, desperately pushing, pleading, tearing at the control device with his mind. It stood like a wall between him and the rest of his power and what he had was so little, so pathetic. It just wasn't enough to save Tenkou, could never be enough.

The control device fought back, hurting, crushing his brain. He could feel blood dripping from his nose, but he couldn't give in, Any little bit more he could rip from that damn wall ...

And then he felt something give and the power flooding in. Still he drew more, drew on everything he could reach and threw it all at the demon. He never saw the blast hit. 


	68. Chapter 68

Title: Too Late Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou, Sohryu, Genbu, Rikugou Prompt: 033. Too Much.  
Word Count: 1235.  
Rating: PG.  
Summary: SohRyu returns to protect the city, but finds that the battle between the demons and Touda is already over.  
Author's Notes: And it continues ...

Soh Ryu immediately ordered the group back to GenSouKai when he received Tenku's alarm. Clearly the demon at the border had been merely a distraction. The operation had been a good first battle experience for Kijin, but not worth the attention of nine divine commanders.

The real attack as was only too obvious now was on their capital and the only really high level fighter left there was Touda. Touda who'd been charged with watching Tenkou, not protecting the city.

Knowing the serpent he'd taken that as an order to entertain the little girl, rather than just make sure that she didn't harm herself. Most likely he wasn't even keeping an eye on the monitors and was completely unaware of the situation. Communication between Touda and Tenku was ... nonexistent at the best of times.

SohRyu sighed as he imagined a very disgruntled hellfire shiki having a make believe tea party with Tenkou and a couple of dolls while demons tore up the city outside.

As they approached GenSouKai he had to revise that picture however. Black fire was burning just outside Tenku! SohRyu had no way to tell whether they were Touda's flames or those of the demons, but there was no way Touda could have missed an attack on the palace itself.

"To the palace!" he ordered. "Get them away from Tenku."

Not only was the palace the most likely goal of the demons' attack, SohRyu's daughter was in there! The possibility that Touda had evacuated the palace did occur to him, but it was a ridiculous idea. Where else would he take Tenkou and the servants? There was no safer place within easy reach.

The best choice of action was to barricade the doors and either take the demons under fire from the highest windows, or meet them outside. Touda had claws and a strong serpent body that could squeeze smaller demons to death. He'd prefer to fight outside.

A sudden flare of hellfire caused him to speed up his flight. Never before had SohRyu seen such a strong blast of the black fire, not even when Touda had gotten out of control during the last war.

It had to be one of the most powerful demons attacking the palace in order to produce such a flare.

What they found wen they reached the palace however wasn't at all what SohRyu had expected. The hellfire was happily consuming a group of trees, but other than that the battle was over.

Touda and an unfamiliar demon were lying unmoving in a heap on the ground and Tenkou was clinging to the door sobbing. Foolish child! What was she doing outside?

"Get inside!" he snapped at her. Simple gestures were enough to assign his commanders to their tasks.

"But Touda!" Tenkou sobbed. "The demon! It ... it almost had me!"

She wasn't looking at the bloody serpent and demon, though. She was staring at the burned ground beneath the burning trees.

"Get inside," SohRyu repeated a little less gruffly. "So I can look after Touda."

This time she obeyed.

"He'll be alright," reported Genbu when SohRyu joined the shiki who had gathered around the fallen serpent. "He's suffered some deep gashes, but most of the blood is from the demon. Touda clawed open his throat."

SohRyu almost smiled. Touda had always been a ferocious fighter. He'd been correct to assume that the serpent would want to bring his claws to bear.

"Nothing else?" Tenkou would be relieved to hear that her protector was alive and not seriously hurt. "Why is he unconscious? Blood loss?"

"We think the control device knocked him out," Rikugou reported. "It is possible that its reaction to a sudden strong flare of power is a bit too intense for his brain and he would need a lot of power to impress a demon like this. They're used to hellfire."

It was only after the battle when there was time to sort everything out and a healer had seen to Touda's injuries that SohRyu learned the whole truth of the matter.

"Apparently there were two demons attacking them," Kijin reported after a long talk with his sister. "We found the one Touda killed with his claws, the other was burned to ashes."

"That's not possible," Rikugou insisted. "Even if the control device didn't limit his power output it would take more power than Touda has to completely disintegrate a demon."

"The control device short-circuited," SohRyu interrupted him. "Touda seems to have somehow overridden it in his attempt to gather enough power for the battle."

"Demons have a partial immunity to hellfire," Genbu threw in. "The control device should not have allowed him enough to hurt a high level demon."

"So he was forced to break it or make due without any distance weapon." SohRyu nodded. It made sense, though it worried him that Touda had been powerful enough to break the device. If it weren't for the further news he'd gotten off the healer he'd have a problem.

"It wasn't the control device that knocked him out, by the way," he informed the others. "He suffered some strain damage from it, but would have managed. It was the amount of power he threw at the demon. It was too much, more than he could control. Touda burned out his power."

There was complete silence after that revelation. Most shiki who burned out their power died in the process or remained powerless afterwards. They'd all heard tales of shiki who'd regained an amount of magical ability, but far below their original level. Only Genbu was likely to know any actual facts, though.

"The healer said she has no idea what the likeliness of recovery for Touda would be. Apparently it depends on the shiki's race as well as type and she couldn't find any data on sky serpents."

"Race and level, more than type," Genbu amended. "The higher the original level of the shiki, the better their chances to regain a worthwhile amount of power. Bird shiki rarely regain any power at all, while a dragon's ability is usually halved. Cats rarely lose more than two levels, most of the time only one."

"What of serpents, though?" SohRyu pushed slightly nervously. He didn't want the medical theory, he wanted to know what would happen to Touda.

"Unknown," Genbu sighed. "There aren't many serpents in GenSouKai and hellfire shiki are extremely rare as well. I'll try to get information through the sky serpent ambassador, but it's quite possible they don't know either. It would take several such cases to gather the necessary empirical data and power burnout isn't that frequent an occurrence either. It's quite possible no cases of it in hellfire serpents are known in the first place. The best we can do is work on it and see how the situation develops."

"Well, at least that gives us time to replace the control device." Suzaku smirked.

SohRyu shot her an angry look. "Don't you dare touch him now."

He wouldn't let anyone harm the serpent while he was hurt, even if he might be crippled for life. Touda had sacrificed his powers for Tenkou.

"We don't really have a use for him, if he's powerless," Rikugou pointed out. "Maybe we should ..."

"Touda stays," SohRyu decided. "If noting else he can continue to work on the computer and watch Tenkou. He has proven that he is an excellent baby-sitter after all." 


	69. Chapter 69

Title: Recovering Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda Prompt: 071. Broken.  
Word Count: 617.  
Rating: PG.  
Summary: Touda is trying to get to terms with his injuries.  
Author's Notes: Just exploring his feelings and a few reactions.

Touda stared at the walls of the admittedly surprisingly nice looking bedroom SohRyu had put him in. He wanted him in the family quarters as long as he was sick, the dragon had claimed, so he'd have the servants closer to hand should he need anything.

Touda secretly thought that it was meant as a thank you for protecting Tenkou. His own race killed cripples, especially those who'd lost their magical powers. Kijin had called it cruel when he'd mentioned it earlier, but Touda secretly thought it more merciful. What use was he now that he had no power to fight with anymore? True, he hadn't been any use when he'd been chained up in the dungeons either and this wall was definitely more pleasant to look at than the ones in his cell had been. But what for? He tried to console himself with the fact that he'd still be able to do simple menial tasks, cleaning, computer work and running errands. Well, he would as soon as the healer pronounced him fit enough for them at least. For now they'd told him that he had to stay in bed or he might tear open the wounds in his side again. Touda didn't really care about the wounds, but it wasn't worth fighting over either. Nothing really mattered anymore either way.

Lying in bed alone all day was boring, but he didn't like having visitors either. He didn't like seeing the pity in their eyes. That was probably why he liked Tenkou's visits best. The child felt sorry for him for being in pain, yes, but she'd honestly apologised for it thinking that it was mostly her fault for not obeying right away when he'd told her to run. When he'd accepted her apology and told her the pain wasn't so bad and the wounds would heal soon enough she'd taken that at face value, cheered up and showed him her newest toy, a very fluffy black plush serpent.

"From Daddy," she'd explained. "Because he knows how much I like playing with you and you don't always have time. So he gave me a toy you to keep me company when you can't. Isn't he pretty?"

Touda had dutifully admired the miniature him and secretly wondered about SohRyu's motives. The dragon had never approved of his daughter's admiration for a hellfire serpent. After that one time Tenkou hadn't mentioned his condition again.

Kijin hadn't been that easily fooled. He was almost grown after all. And the adults, well, they did their best not to mention it at all, but the fact that they were even visiting him in the first place spoke volumes. He did not want the pity of people who didn't even like him. Rikugou was the worst. The way he avoided anything that might remotely resemble an insult was so obviously out of character. Genbu was much better at it. He seemed almost natural. Byakko actually was his usual self, chatty and spontaneous and sometimes suddenly lapsing into complete unhappy silence. Touda had almost tried to console him a few times.

And then there was SohRyu who didn't quite count as a visitor. Touda had had no idea that the cold and distant dragon could turn into such a mother hen. He'd never seemed to pay that much attention even to his children. Why Touda all of a sudden? He understood that the dragon was grateful for saving his daughter, but his taking a personal interest in his recovery was unexpected and unwelcome. He didn't want to see anybody, he only wanted to die. If it weren't for Tenkou who'd most likely blame herself, he'd just kill himself and be done wit it. 


	70. Chapter 70

Title: Being Patient Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Suzaku, SohRyu, Rikugou, Byakko, Genbu Prompt: 009. Months.  
Word Count: 1342.  
Rating: G Summary: So Touda's recovery will take a long time, if he ever recovers at all. Touda and patience?  
Author's Notes: It took me a while to come up with a suitable story for this prompt, but I'm quite happy it was still free now.

September:  
"I refuse to have anything to do with it," Suzaku snapped at SohRyu. "I hate that filthy serpent. I'm glad he's lost his powers. Now at least he can't do us or Tsuzuki any harm."

"He was hurt defending our city and my daughter," SohRyu pointed out. "He deserves our gratitude."

"Yours maybe, but not mine," Suzaku declared, turned and walked away.

"But Suzaku," SohRyu called after her. "Your powers are the most like his. You're best suited to help him."

There was no telling whether she'd even heard him.

"I'll do it," Byakko offered enthusiastically. "I'd love to help Touda."

"You Byakko?" Rikugou asked. "I'm sure you mean well, but I doubt you have what it takes. This will be a long, very slow process. You are much too impatient. You'd only get pushy and ruin it all. It's better if I do it. Touda doesn't like me, but I have the patience for the job."

"No," said Genbu. "If Suzaku won't do it, I am the best shiki for the job. I have the most knowledge about his condition."

Realising that it was about to turn into an argument SohRyu stepped in. "Lets all take turns. We're all very busy and this will take a lot of time and effort. It can only help to split the load and we can also compare notes and see which methods work best."

October:  
"This is useless," said Touda. "There's nothing there to work with."

"That is highly unlikely," Genbu returned calmly. "High level shiki don't usually lose all their power through burnout. More likely we started too soon. Maybe the damage isn't healed far enough yet. These things take a lot of time. We have to be patient."

"Yeah, right," Touda snorted.

It had been two months since his battle with the demons and he'd just spent a whole hour trying to summon hellfire without producing a single spark. What was the use? His powers were gone.

November:  
Touda lay by the fireplace lazily watching the flames. Outside the fist snow of the year was falling and remembering his vulnerability to cold SohRyu had ordered him to stay inside.

He'd spent most of the day playing with Tenkou, but right now she wasdoing homework and he had nothing to keep his mind occupied.

Thus he was brooding. The dancing flames in the fireplace were beautiful, but reminded him too much of the ones he had once been able to conjure. As he watched the orange fire he imagined black flames dancing and rising. How he longed to ...

Something black flickered in the fireplace. It was only there for a second, but it brought Touda to his feet with a surprised and delighted hiss that would have made even Tenkou jump.

It took him over an hour to repeat the manifestation, but afterwards there could be no more doubt. He really did have some measure of power left, though by the looks of it, it was pathetically weak.

December:  
The snow and cold outside had a good side. It kept most of the commanders inside giving them more time to practise with Touda. Ever since his discovery that he still had powers the serpent had been very eager to practise. Not that he was very happy with the results.

"It's still just a single tiny flame," he complained. "What's the use of that? It's just barely enough to burn your paw with."

Byakko quickly withdrew his hands from sight causing Touda to smile weakly.

"It's improved a lot," the tiger reminded him. "I mean, do you remember how long it took you to conjure anything at all? Or how hard it was to hold it when you finally did? Now it comes whenever you want it to and it's relatively stable."

To be entirely honest Byakko had no idea how much flickering and fluctuation was normal for the fire element. His own air powers always danced a bit and he thought he'd heard that fire did even more so, but he might be wrong. He wasn't an expert by a long shot.

"Rikugou says that you're doing great and that we have to be patient." It was almost funny that Byakko of all shiki was recommending patience. "And we can't raise an inferno in here anyway. SohRyu would be furious with us for burning his furniture," the tiger continued. "Lets stick with shaping and moving the flame for now."

The short time goals had been set by Genbu and had Byakko fascinated. He knew a lot about moving an element, but air didn't lend itself to much shaping. A fire shiki's ability to form pictures and symbols with their power was something he'd been unaware of before and he was very enthusiastic about it.

"Can you write my name again?"

Touda decided to humour the tiger. Forming letters still required a lot of concentration, but he'd mastered it a while ago. He did enjoy watching Byakko's delight with the trick, though.

January:  
"And now do it faster."

The little black flame hopped from on candle to the other.

"And again."

Lessons with Rikugou were always the most boring, but Touda didn't dare to complain. He knew that the earth shiki was doing a lot to help him and he was the best expert they had, but it was still hard to remain attentive after half an hour of nothing but left candle, right candle, left ...

"And faster."

Maybe he should tell Rikugou that this was still nowhere near his speed limit? The flame had come to him at a mere thought for a while now.

Touda decided to lighten up the exercise with a few really fast jumps.

"Yes, and still faster!"

Okay, this wasn't difficult, but he was beginning to get confused by his own speed. Which candle's turn was it again?

"Hold it!"

The excited exclamation was so unexpected from Rikugou that Touda completely dropped his powers in surprise.

"That's it. You did it."

"Did what?"

Rikugou calmly pointed at the candles, which were both burning.

February:  
"Oh, another hit," Genbu giggled. "Five points to you, one to me. But I bet I can get past you with this!"

He threw two paper balls at once, but once again Touda burned them long before they could have reached the basket.

"Just you wait," Genbu threatened happily. "I'll win this game yet." And he started a fierce barrage of paper balls.

It was funny how childish this ancient shiki could be, but at least his lessons were never dull.

March:  
She had him cornered. Touda backed up close to the wall to make sure that Suzaku didn't get behind him, but that was purely out of instinct. It didn't matter where she attacked from. He didn't have anything to set against her. His only hope of getting out of this situation unhurt was that somebody would come by and save him.

"Still free you filthy traitor?" Suzaku glared at him. "I can't believe SohRyu's just letting you walk about like this. Well, I at least don't feel sorry for crippled monsters."

She leaned closer, lifted her sword ...

Once again Touda reacted purely on instinct throwing everything he had at her.

"Ouww!" Suzaku shrieked as the black fireball engulfed her.

She might be impervious to normal fire, but hellfire could hurt her, even if Touda was unable to do her any lasting harm.

The shriek brought the others running. Byakko took one look at the situation and burst into helpless laughter. One should never laugh at Suzaku. It made her furious.

"The traitor tried to kill me!"

"I'm sure," SohRyu stated dryly his eyes pointedly on the sword in her hand.

"Touda isn't powerful enough to do much more than singe your hair," Rikugou pointed out. "And I believe SohRyu told you to leave him alone."

"My skin's blistering!" Suzaku complained.

"Well," Genbu said happily. "It looks like Touda's fire is a worthwhile weapon after all."

It felt good to have them on his side for once. 


	71. Chapter 71

Title: Little Girl In The Night Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou Prompt: 069. Thunder.  
Word Count: 100.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Tenkou, thunder, Touda – The rest is obvious, I think.  
Author's Notes: I managed a drabble! Someday I might actually learn to write them more easily.

"Touda?"

What in the world was Tenkou doing standing in his bedroom in the middle of the night? Touda blinked at her tiredly and hissed questioningly. He was still too sleepy for coherent speech.

Luckily Tenkou was well used to dealing with shiki of various races and didn't get scared by the sound that was easily misinterpreted as aggressive by non-serpents.

"There's a storm," she stated clutching her stuffed snake tightly to her chest.

"I noticed that," Touda agreed. "What about it?"

"I ..." A thunderclap interrupted her and she jumped into bed beside Touda with a shriek. "I'm scared." 


	72. Chapter 72

Title: Flammable Monster Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tsuzuki, Byakko Prompt: 072. Fixed.  
Word Count: 233.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Touda's back in action.  
Author's Notes: And this concludes the tale of Touda's injury and recovery.

One good thing had come of the burnout damage to Touda's powers. People were a lot less nervous around him now. Even though he could fight again they hadn't forced a new control device on him. Most of his fellow shiki treated him a lot more kindly and even Tsuzuki called on him more often.

It was embarrassing to watch his master call on somebody else whenever it came to a serious fight, though. He'd once been the deadliest weapon in Tsuzuki's arsenal, now he was usually called to deal with human opponents and when one of them unexpectedly conjured a monster Tsuzuki didn't hesitate even a moment to call Byakko.

This time something had gone wrong, though. The monster had grown to incredible size and was attempting to crush the tiger under its foot. It looked heavy enough to cause serious damage.

Touda lashed out with all the power he could manage. Maybe if he burned the foot it'd draw it back and ...

Instead the monster flared up and he had to hastily extinguish the fire before the whole building went up in flames. A highly flammable monster?

"I thought you couldn't ..." Tsuzuki asked surprised.

Touda shrugged. He wasn't sure what he'd just done either.

Byakko beamed at him. "We just assumed it wouldn't heal completely. Thanks by the way. That thing was a bit too heavy to blow away." 


	73. Chapter 73

Title: Sixty Years Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Kichin Prompt: 020. Colourless.  
Word Count: 873.  
Rating: PG.  
Summary: Touda's unhappy and Kijin can't help.  
Author's Notes: Work's not giving me any time to write right now, so this was hastily typed right now and not even proofread. The prompt's been giving me trouble for a while now, though and I'm really glad I finally found something to wrote about it.

It had been exactly sixty years since Touda had been released from his prison. Sixty years weren't that long a time in the life of a shiki, but then it wasn't the wink of an eye either.

Touda sighed and curled up tighter on his chosen roof of the day.

Back then he'd been a little surprised but not truly worried at how washed out and colourless the other shiki appeared to him. It had been the same when he'd first arrived in GenSouKai, knowing nobody, a stranger in a strange city. As he'd gotten to know the people around him they'd coloured in, making it easy at first to pick out the ones he knew in a crowd.

He'd expected the same to happen when he'd come out of prison ascribing the loss of colour to his subconscious warning him that people had to have changed during the long time he'd been gone and expecting the colours to return once he grew familiar with them once again. Sixty years should have been enough to re-familiarise himself with the shiki he met every day.

Touda sighed again as he looked out over the dull, not quite grey, but not really colourful expanse of the city below him. Foreigners usually praised GenSouKai's vivid colours and lights and once upon a time he'd loved to sit here and watch the colours change at sunset, a small pleasure that now seemed forever lost.

There was only one thing left in the world that seemed colourful in his eyes and that was Tsuzuki. What a strange thing to think of a man who mostly consisted of blacks and whites.

"There you are!"

Touda looked up at the sound of the familiar voice. Kijin. He suspected that the boy was supposed to look blue, like his father, but he had never met him before his imprisonment, so he didn't really know.

"Wormhole?" he asked stating the first thing on his mind that he might be needed for.

"Oh no, nothing like that," Kijin assured him sitting down on the roof beside him. "I actually ... Well, to be honest I originally went looking for you, because I wanted to ask you something, but it's not important, really."

Was the boy blushing? He couldn't really see the difference in his face, but the way he ducked his head and looked at the ground indicated this was girlfriend trouble again. Or not having girlfriend trouble, most likely. Poor Kijin was much too shy to talk to the girls he fancied and by the time he worked up his courage they usually had been snatched away by somebody else.

Why he always came to Touda with these woes was beyond the serpent. It wasn't like he'd ever been able to help.

"That pretty white owlet you mentioned last time?"

Kijin nodded. "I saw her kiss an older barn owl shiki yesterday. Probably for the best. Dragons and birds don't mix well."

"My mother was a rabbit," Touda pointed out. "And my father a snake. Can't get much worse a combination." Not that they'd actually ever been a couple, but that was neither here nor there and Kijin definitely didn't need to hear the story.

Kijin shrugged. "That's not why I wanted to talk to you anyway. I'm over her. Met somebody else, actually, but that's not why I'm here now either. Rikugou told me it's a special day for you and well, ... I thought we should celebrate, but you don't look too happy. I thought you'd be glad about ... you know, being out."

"I ..." He hadn't realised any of the others were even aware of the significance of the date. "I suppose I should be, but then I'm not really 'out' as you put it, not completely."

He looked into the boy's confused face. How could he expect Kijin to understand something that was only a vague nagging feeling to himself? "I'm beginning to think I never will be."

He didn't know where the words had come from, but they were true he realised after he'd said them. Somehow, even though he was free to move about the city as he pleased some part of him was still chained to that wall in the dark.

Kijin looked at him with big frightened eyes, helpless in front of a problem that was so far out of what little experience he had.

Touda smiled at him. "You are too young for this, I know. I should take this problem to Genbu or perhaps Rikugou. They'll know what to do about it." Yeah, right, but it was better, if Kijin thought he'd talk it over with somebody the boy trusted in. At this young age he was probably still convinced that Genbu could solve anything. "Now tell me about this new flame of yours."

"Are you sure?" Kijin asked hesitantly. "It's your day today and you've done so much for me. Shouldn't it be my turn to help you?"

"Ah, but you are helping me, " Touda assured him. "You're distracting me from my own problems and yours we might just be able to solve together."

Well, it was better than to sit around here all day at least. 


	74. Chapter 74

Title: Looking For Chaos Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Suzaku, Tsuzuki, SohRyu, Hisoka Prompt: 055. Spirit.  
Word Count: 453.  
Rating: G Summary: Once again a spirit has escaped, but where did it go?  
Author's Notes: This proofed to be the hardest prompt of all, not because I didn't have any ideas, but because I'm unsure about the definition of the word spirit. (As in, I thought I knew what it meant, but the way my co-workers use it, I have no idea what they're talking about and it's made me rather insecure about using the word.) So I'm sticking with the relatively safe option that this one is something Tsuzuki has to catch.

"You want us to go spirit-hunting again?" Suzaku frowned at Tsuzuki. "Those are boring."

"I don't like spirits," Touda commented.

SohRyu nodded. "Bad memories."

Suzaku sneered at them both.

"It won't be the same," Tsuzuki promised. "This time it is only one minor chaos spirit. It can't overrun you and isn't immune to any of your powers."

"So why do you need all of us to fight it?" Touda asked. "Sounds like one of us should easily be enough."

Tsuzuki blushed and stared at the floor. "I don't know where it is," he admitted. "I need you to help me look for it before it causes too much damage."

So they split up. Suzaku searched the air above the city, the rooftops and main streets, SohRyu the side streets and larger buildings. Small buildings had to be left to Tsuzuki and Hisoka who were small enough to move in them without having to be afraid of causing serious damage.

Touda reluctantly slithered through underground tunnels and sewers. He didn't see why he should suffer the smell down here. Yes, he was the only one of them who was suitable to crawling through tunnels, but it should not be necessary. Finding a chaos spirit shouldn't be hard. Its location ought to be obvious.

Chaos spirits took their name from their habit of causing chaos wherever they went. There should be lights blinking, people shrieking and objects flying through the air somewhere in this city, if the spirit was really here. The thing didn't have the intelligence to hide quietly.

If it had been up to Touda, they'd have found some place to watch TV and waited for the local news. That should have told them all they needed to know.

Even without the news he suspected that Suzaku must have seen the disturbance from the air by now. He was wasting his time down here.

But when Touda completed his search and returned smelly and miserable to meet up with the others he was surprised to find them just as frustrated as he was. None of them had found anything at all. The city was peaceful and quiet.

"I don't understand this," Tsuzuki said. "It has to be here somewhere. What did we miss?"

The ringing of the phone interrupted him.

"Yes? Hisoka picked it up. "Oh, it's you GouShoShin. ... What? ... What do you mean forgot to inform us? ... Idiots!" He slammed down the receiver, then turned to the others. "They sent us on a wild goose chase. False alarm. The spirit was tearing up Meifu the whole time."

Touda didn't stay around to find out what damages it had done to the shinigami's home world. He desperately needed a shower. 


	75. Chapter 75

Title: Accident Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko Prompt: 038. Touch.  
Word Count: 385.  
Rating: G Summary: Just a casual touch. Touda however is so insecure around the others that he expects Byakko to mind.  
Author's Notes: Inspired by an odd memory from primary school. Having spent 5 years in day care before, I doubt it really was the first time another child touched me, but I remember it as such. I don't remember what we were looking at or who that child was, just that they leant over my shoulder and I thought how odd it was they didn't mind touching me.

It was just a faint, soft whisper against his scales, barely more than a breath of air, but Touda still froze at the touch. A nervous glance to the side confirmed that it was Byakko whose fur had accidentally brushed Touda's skin.

Should he apologise? Or would it be better not to draw attention to the accident? It wasn't like it was really Touda's fault. He'd just been lying there. It was Byakko who'd leaned over him and caused the contact and the tiger didn't even seem to have noticed. He continued to examine the strange footprint Touda had found as if nothing had happened at all.

Touda flattened himself as tightly to the ground as he could to give Byakko as much space as possible without withdrawing from the group and the footprint entirely. He still wanted to know what it was that he'd found.

They were still too close together, though and Touda wondered briefly whether he might be going claustrophobic.

Just then Byakko glanced down and their eyes met. The tiger took in Touda's awkward position and tilted his head quizzically. "Am I too close?"

Byakko himself was boxed in between the huge body of SohRyu and Rikugou, Touda noticed. There were too many of them staring at the same small footprint he realised and Byakko had probably been aware of the touch after all, but accepted it in order to satisfy his curiosity. It was better to be flattened under Byakko than squished up against SohRyu or Rikugou. At least the tiger was a generally forgiving and friendly person.

"Just mind those claws," Touda returned hoping it sounded casual. He was in a rather vulnerable position with Byakko's paws right next to his neck.

"Sure," Byakko bent down and nuzzled his head reassuringly. "I wouldn't want to hurt you."

He felt fluffy and soft, almost as if he had no substance at all. So very different from Touda's own rough scales. One could almost believe that Byakko was a light and vulnerable creature, but Touda wasn't fooled. He'd seen Byakko in battle. Like every cat the tiger was equipped with five deadly weapons, his mouth and paws, and knew exactly how to use them. Nevertheless for now the claws remained sheathed and the muzzle closed leaving only soft and gentle fur. 


	76. Chapter 76

Title: Party Problems Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, SohRyu, Suzaku, Rikugou, Genbu, Kijin Prompt: 060. Drink.  
Word Count: 633.  
Rating: G Summary: Touda watching his fellow shiki.  
Author's Notes: Years ago my mother once mentioned how she understood my dislike of parties better after spending an evening watching the people around her get drunk without drinking herself. I don't think it's just that, but here's Touda suffering through a party.

Touda kept to the sides of the ballroom watching the others interact. Just this morning Rikugou had told him to "Pay a little attention to your fellow shiki, damn it!".

He didn't usually obey Rikugou, nor did he expect to gain any grand insight from this, but people told him such things a lot and he didn't have anything else to pass the time.

Touda didn't like parties much. They were all about socialising and Touda wasn't a social creature, not even when people actually liked him. So he withdrew into the shadows, tried to go unnoticed and studied the actions of the others trying to recognise some patterns and rules.

What he'd found out so far was that all of them were drinking. That seemed to be an important rule of parties. You had to consume as much alcohol as possible.

As usual Touda was the odd one out. He'd picked up a glass a while ago to make it less obvious and nipped on the contents a few times. The taste had not improved over time so he'd switched to just carrying the drink around and occasionally sniffing it. He didn't like the smell either, but it was better than the taste and had fewer unpleasant consequences.

He had the vague suspicion that it would be bad form to leave an almost full glass behind when he left, but really did not want to finish the drink.

The others had all finished off several glasses by now and seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely.

SohRyu passed by Touda's corner with a giggling Suzaku on his arm. Genbu trailed behind them sniggering like a schoolboy and groping Suzaku's behind at every chance he got.

Byakko was telling what he and his audience seemed to consider jokes, though Touda failed to recognise the punch lines. It all seemed more vulgar than funny to him, but everybody else clearly thought it was hilarious.

Rikugou was making a fool of himself on the dance floor and Kijin, for whom it was the first time he'd been officially allowed to join an adult party, had passed out on a table. Touda thought the poor child ought to be in bed. At the very least somebody should have been supervising him and have stopped him from drinking himself under the table. Or onto the table in this case. SohRyu didn't seem to have noticed his son's condition, though.

An hour or so passed. The laughter and giggling seemed to grow louder and louder, the conversation less and less funny, or even coherent. Touda's ears were ringing from all the too loud voices, but nothing they were saying made any sense to him anymore.

He made a decision. Enough was enough and it was time he got out of here. Just leaving might not be polite, but he could make himself useful while he did it and hope it would be forgiven or at best overlooked.

He set his still almost full glass down on the next flat surface he found. It was a stair-rail, but if anybody accidentally pushed it off, that was their problem, not Touda's. Maybe Tenku would enjoy the alcohol seeping into his floor.

The serpent crossed the room with determined strides swerving only slightly whenever somebody stood in his way. Nobody paid him any attention.

"Kijin?"

The boy didn't react at all, so Touda shook his shoulder a few times. "Kijin?"

"Mmmh?"

"Come on, let's get you to bed."

He had to half carry, half drag Kijin out, but nobody challenged them on their way. Some of them even had the presence of mind to step aside and let them through. He might not have learned anything about people today, but at least the experiment had provided him with a good escape strategy. 


	77. Chapter 77

Title: Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: SohRyu, Kichin, Tenkou, Touda Prompt: 056. Breakfast.  
Word Count: 373.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: SohRyu's thoughts about his family.  
Author's Notes: Mostly studying SohRyu's relationship with his children here, but the more I write about him the more Touda intrudes there. Poor dragon.

SohRyu watched his family over breakfast and suppressed a sigh.

Kijin was once again listlessly shoving his food about while staring unseeingly at the wall. He wondered what was wrong with the boy, but Kijin had pretended not to know what he was talking about when he'd asked. He was getting a little too old to run to his father with every little problem, but then they'd never been close. SohRyu simply had too much else pressing on him to devote much time to his children. He worried that Kijin might not have anybody to confide in though. He was so quiet.

Tenkou on the other hand was chattering away happily while building a tower out of her food. She didn't seem to mind whether he was paying her any attention or not. Most likely her tale was mostly addressed to Touda anyway. SoghRyu was almost sure enough to bet that the serpent would have been able to tell him what she was talking about anyway.

Maybe Touda even knew what was bothering Kijin.

Right now was not a good time to ask, though. SohRyu had long ago accepted that Touda considered formal meals a form of torture, but it bothered him that the serpent still couldn't seem to relax during an informal family meal.

The problem with formal occasions SohRyu could understand. Touda's upbringing, though he didn't know many details had been sorely lacking and by the time he'd arrived at court the serpent had been too old to adapt easily. The finer points of meaningless dinner conversation still escaped him and probably always would. Some of Touda's mistakes were legendary and the cause of much teasing from their colleagues with more noble backgrounds. The children however never teased Touda about these things. They were guilty of too many such mishaps themselves, not to mention all the other dirt Touda had on them.

A private meal such as this should be a relaxed, comfortable affair.

SohRyu sighed again. No, it wasn't the children that made Touda so uncomfortable and that left only one other person at the table. He watched the serpent sadly. Both his children trusted and confided in Touda, yet the dragon didn't even know how to talk to him. 


	78. Chapter 78

Title: Summon Me A Shiki Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Hisoka, Tsuzuki Prompt: 074. Dark.  
Word Count: 575.  
Rating: G Summary: Hisoka wants some light. Or failing that company in the dark.  
Author's Notes: I seem to always have a shiki as my POV character, so here I tried to do something different and give a little attention to a character I like more than my ficlets let on. The ending of this one surprised me.

It was completely dark in the caves they were searching and it was beginning to grate on Hisoka's nerves. He couldn't see a thing and whenever they stopped walking the only thing he heard was the unnaturally loud sound of his own breath.

"Can't you call on Suzaku for some light?" he suggested to his partner. "We're never going to find anything in the dark."

"Light would announce our presence," Tsuzuki countered. "I don't want to stir up the whole flock of demons and monsters down here, if we can avoid it."

Hisoka stifled a sigh and reminded himself that Muraki was dead and couldn't jump out at him at any moment.

"Well, it's not going to help us much to just poke around blindly," he pointed out. "I don't suppose you have a bat-shiki, do you?"

"No," Tsuzuki admitted. "None of them are particularly well suited to life in the dark."

"What about Byakko? Cats see in the dark."

"He has excellent night vision," Tsuzuki agreed. "But he still needs some light to see. I think dragons are comfortable in caves, but SohRyu is too big for most of these tunnels."

He stopped talking abruptly and Hisoka was once again left alone with only the sound of his breath for company. It couldn't really be as loud as it seemed to him, if he couldn't hear Tsuzuki breathe, though. The monsters weren't going to hear him.

"Tsuzuki?"

"You'd really feel more comfortable, if we had a shiki with us, wouldn't you?" He'd obviously thought of something. It made Hisoka feel more hopeful despite the hesitation in Tsuzuki's voice.

"It' not about comfort," Hisoka lied. "But we need help, if we want to find anything in here. Someone who can trace monsters by smell perhaps."

"I'm going to call Touda," Tsuzuki decided. "I know you don't like him, but he has an excellent sense of smell, can slip through places SohRyu'd never fit and is tough enough to defend himself even against one of the bigger demons."

Had he considered bringing Kichin into this?

Several minutes later Hisoka decided that it wasn't that much better to have a shiki scouting ahead after all. Now every time they stopped he could hear Touda's sharp hisses as the serpent flicked his tongue to check the smells ahead of them. They were safer like this, he knew, and he was grateful for the protection, but the sounds were terrifying.

"Is that why you never call on Touda?" he asked Tsuzuki as much to distract himself from the sounds as out of curiosity. "Because I don't get along with him?"

"No," Tsuzuki assured him. "I wouldn't call him much, even if it wasn't because of you. Touda is ... deadly. It scares me to think of the collateral damage he could cause. Touda's power unleashed can burn whole cities to ashes. It's not something to call on lightly."

"He'll obey your commands, though. You control how far he'll go."

There was a pause as Tsuzuki wondered what to say. Hisoka felt a spike of conflicting emotions, but Tsuzuki quickly reined them in. He knew how hard Hisoka had to fight to close them out.

"Hisoka, Touda ..." He hesitated again. "There is a point where Touda can no longer control himself and I don't know where it is. Nobody does."

Hisoka shuddered. All of a sudden the hissing seemed even louder, a death threat in every breath Touda took. 


	79. Chapter 79

Title: Earth Warriors Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou Prompt: 053. Earth.  
Word Count: 227.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Tenkou wants to know how the different elements are used in battle. Some questions are easy, others only seem so at first glance.  
Author's Notes: I have no idea where this one came from. It was supposed to be about Genbu.

"So what about earth-shiki?" Tenkou asked turning away from the training fight between her father and Byakko.

"What about them?" Touda asked back.

"Well, how do they fight? I understand what you told me about water and air and I've seen you practise with Suzaku, but what about earth? How do you use that as a weapon?"

Seen him practise with Suzaku? Oh sweet innocence of childhood! Touda suppressed a bitter laugh.

Then he thought about the question. How did earth shiki warriors use their element in battle? He was startled to realise that no ready answer came to mind. Nor could he remember fighting an earth shiki off the top of his head.

He tried to think of the earth shiki he knew. There was Genbu, of course, the teacher and philosopher, Rikugou, the scientist, Tenku and Daion. The most warlike of them all was definitely Tenku and he was a building!

"Earth is a calm, defensive element," he remembered. "Maybe it doesn't lend itself to aggressive magic. Tenku is quite unmovable, though. Of how many other shiki can you say that?"

Tenkou shrugged and looked confused. She was probably too young to understand the concept, Touda supposed.

"They are defenders, not attackers," he tried to explain, but knew that it didn't really answer her question. She had given him a lot to think about, though. 


	80. Chapter 80

Title: First Girlfriend Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, SohRyu (Tenkou and Kijin mentioned)  
Prompt: 036. Smell.  
Word Count: 745.  
Rating: G Summary: Touda has a slight problem with Kijin.  
Author's Notes: Snakes and smell somehow involve hunting in my mind. My first thought was of Touda eating Suzaku whose animal shape seemed best suited for snake food. Here's a more believable story.

"Do you want me to eat you?" Touda hissed at Kijin.

The boy stepped back hastily and Touda returned to whatever he had been doing under those bushes. Probably looking for Tenkou's ball again. It was ridiculous how often that girl lost her favourite toy.

"Touda?" SohRyu reminded himself sternly to be polite. "Could we talk for a moment?"

The serpent looked up at him with a start. He never seemed entirely comfortable in SohRyu's presence no matter how hard the dragon tried to keep his temper in check around him. Skittish serpent, but then again Touda had seen him at his worst, had felt his wrath before. Maybe it was reasonable for him to be afraid.

"Sure," Touda said with a casual shrug. He was trying, too. "What is it?"

"In private."

SohRyu steered them in the direction of the private quarters. Few people outside of the family had reason to go that way. Touda was one of those welcome, though, so the children wouldn't think it strange. The serpent was still hesitant to make use of the privilege when he didn't have to, though. Or maybe he avoided the place t keep away from SohRyu?

"What's that about eating my son?" SohRyu made an effort to make it sound casual, but it came out sounding stern even to himself.

"What?" Was that surprise or worry? "Oh nothing. Just reminding him of an agreement we had."

"I don't want you threatening my children," SohRyu snapped.

"I wasn't. It's just a joke. An exaggeration."

SohRyu regarded the serpent. Touda had always gotten on well with the children and there had never been any hint that they might be afraid of him.

"I can control myself," Touda assured him.

"Control what? You have an impulse to eat my children?" Kijin was a little too big even for a snake of Touda's size to swallow whole and snake instincts wouldn't consider the possibility of cutting up food or taking bites. As a shiki Touda was capable of either, though and Tenkou wasn't anywhere near her brother's size. He'd never before considered the possibility of Touda's instincts interpreting his children as prey, though. Serpents weren't supposed to eat dragons.

"It's the rat-smell," Touda explained. "Drives me crazy when I'm hungry. The worst I'd do, if I left my instincts unchecked would be to sniff Kijin hungrily looking for rats in his pockets. Our agreement was for my comfort, not his safety."

"Sniff him?" That was ridiculous. Snakes didn't even have proper noses.

A long forked tongue flicked at him accompanied by a soft hiss. It almost, but not quite, touched his face. SohRyu took a step back to avoid contact.

"I'm told it tickles," Touda added. "Tenkou likes it, but Kijin finds it rather undignified."

Right. He didn't want to know the details of that conversation. At least the children seemed neither harmed nor traumatised by the experience.

"My children smell like prey to you?" That was the worrying part.

"No, but I can smell Kijin's girlfriend on him for hours after a snog."

"Kijin's girlfriend!" SohRyu laughed. He hadn't even known the boy was dating.

"It's torture when I'm hungry," Touda added with a little theatrical sigh. "My instincts are convinced there must be a nice tasty rat nearby when all there is is a scaly young dragon. I really hope he doesn't marry this one."

"It's a bit early for him to think of marriage," SohRyu grinned. "I wouldn't worry about it."

"I don't really," Touda agreed. "And I could control myself enough not to eat her, if he did. I've been around rat-shiki before and never ate one."

That was when it finally sank in. "Wait a minute! My son is dating a rat? A common weakly little rodent? Couldn't he find anything a little more appropriate?"

He turned back intending to have a long, serious talk with Kijin, but Touda grabbed his arm and held him back.

"Don't," the serpent hissed. "You'll scare him out of dating entirely."

"I'll what?" SohRyu thundered. Touda rarely touched him.

"He's still shy about it," Touda explained with a wince. Maybe that had been a little too loud. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to convince him to actually talk to a girl?"

"But a rat-shiki, Touda? He isn't just anyone. Why couldn't he pick something a little more worthy?"

"You said yourself that he's not old enough to marry, yet," Touda reminded him. 


	81. Chapter 81

Title: Not A Snake Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou Prompt: 039. Taste.  
Word Count: 246.  
Rating: G Summary: Tenkou is concerned about Kijin's girlfriend.  
Author's Notes: Taste and Smell are hard to write separately when your main character's a snake. This could be set before or after the Smell ficlet.

"Touda?" Tenkou hopped onto the chair beside him.

"Yes?" The girl had a knack for telling when he was working and when he was just pretending to be busy. He had no idea how she did it. Her father always fell for it.

"You weren't serious, were you?"

"About what?"

"Well, when you said Kijin's new friend was tasty," Tenkou explained. "You can't know what she tastes like. You haven't even met her."

"And how would that prevent me from tasting her?"

"To taste somebody you'd have to bite them. Or at least lick them."

"Ah," Touda smiled. "But I don't. I'm a snake."

"And snakes can taste things that aren't there?" Tenkou asked sceptically.

"Oh yes, we taste smells, you see. That's why I smell with my tongue."

Tenkou giggled. "Your tongue's cute," she said. "And it tickles so nicely."

"It's also very useful," Touda pointed out. "I can smell a lot more than most shiki."

"And taste it all, too," Tenkou added.

"Yes, and taste it, too," Touda confirmed.

There was silence for a minute or so.

"But how can a person taste edible? I wouldn't want to eat anybody."

"Well, she's a rat-shiki," Touda explained. "She tastes like a rat."

Tenkou frowned, disgusted.

"I wouldn't want to eat a rat. No matter what she smelled like."

"You're not a snake."

"No, but would you really eat Kijin's friend?"

"Probably not," Touda assured her. "But I have eaten rats before. They are quite tasty." 


	82. Chapter 82

Title: Party Problems Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, SohRyu, Tenkou Prompt: 093. Thanksgiving.  
Word Count: 929.  
Rating: G Summary: Tenkou's birthday party is over, but there are a few things left to do.  
Author's Notes: I considered this prompt the most difficult of all for a long time. Thanksgiving is an American holiday and has no place in my culture, nor in that of the fandom I picked for the challenge. Even when I decided to go with a more literal meaning I still didn't think it would make a good story. Touda isn't likely to thank anyone except perhaps Tsuzuki nor are most of the other characters likely to thank him. I finally went for a character that was and to my surprise it led to another very unexpected thank you.

Touda suppressed a sigh of relief as the last mother accepted her child back with only a very distrusting glance at him and hurried away. Normally it should be SohRyu supervising Tenkou's party guests, but when the dragon had realised that the parents were more interested in talking to him than in their children he'd drafted Touda into playing the host instead and fled back to his paperwork.

From SohRyu's perspective it hadn't been a bad decision, Touda had to admit. Nobody wanted to spend more than the absolute minimum of time in the presence of the hellfire shiki and the little party guests had been returned to their parents with barely any waste of time.

He wasn't sure it had been good for Tenkou, though. The way the parents had looked at him Touda doubted any of their children would be back for her next birthday. They'd be lucky, if they were still allowed to play with her tomorrow.

Well, at least fewer party guests would mean less work next year. It wasn't easy to keep forty odd children out of trouble and entertained for several hours. For Touda this had been an exhausting day and it wasn't over yet.

"Touda?"

He looked down to where the voice had come from. Tenkou stood next to him, her stuffed snake clutched tightly to her chest.

"So did you have a good birthday?" Why was she clutching the snake? Didn't she like any of the new toys she'd just been given? Shouldn't she be in her room playing with them?

"A wonderful birthday," she declared nodding eagerly. "I think it was the biggest party I've ever had and we had lots of fun."

"So what's wrong then?" he prodded.

"Wrong?"

"Well, why are you and your little friend," he nodded towards the snake in her arms." Down here instead of exploring all those wonderful gifts you got today?"

"Oh, I'm going to show them to Little Touda in a minute," Tenkou assured him. "But he'll be angry at me, if I don't thank you for the party first. He's the little you after all."

"Thank me for the party? It was your father who organised it for you, Tenkou. You should thank him."

"It was the servants who decorated the room and cooked and served food and drinks," Tenkou returned. "And they're going to have to clean up the mess, too. Father just told them to do it and then he only came for a few minutes before all the guests were even there. When he said he had urgent work I almost thought he was cancelling the party at the last minute. You're the one who actually ran everything and that must have been hard. You should have had help from Father and Kijin."

Where was Kijin anyway? He should have been home hours ago. Feeling too old for a little girl's party?

"Anyway, I wanted to thank you for saving my party and making it the wonderful event it was," Tenkou said with a formal bow, then hugged both his legs tightly as a more personal statement.

"Well," How did one react to such a gesture? Touda had no problem finding a proper response to insults, veiled threats and attacking demon armies. Grateful little girls on the other hand ... "It's really nice of Little Touda and you to think of me, but you two will have to be in bed soon, so you'd better make use of the time you have to play."

"Oh yes, Little Touda hasn't even met his new friend Little Dragon, yet!"

Tenkou shot off in the direction of her playroom.

"Little Dragon?" Touda repeated to himself. "I was sure he'd be Little SohRyu."

"She doesn't think of me by my name." SohRyu's head poked out from behind a corner. "And I'm rather glad she doesn't call any of her toys Little Daddy. Are they all gone?"

"Yes, the coast is clear."

"She's mad at me, isn't she?" The rest of the dragon shiki rounded the corner.

Touda shrugged. "I'm not sure what she made of your excuse. If she took it at face value, you're probably fine. If she realises you made it up to get away, though, she's hurt and furious."

Tenkou was a quiet girl and usually kept negative feelings to herself. Sometimes it was hard to tell what she felt.

SohRyu sighed. "Do you think she'd understand, if I explained why I wanted out of that situation?"

"I don't know. She might think you should have suffered it for her. I'd stick with an unexpected diplomatic emergency."

"Right, she'd wonder why you weren't needed, if I give her the wormhole excuse."

"Have you seen Kijin?" Touda risked asking. The dragon seemed to be in an unusually mellow mood.

"Kijin? Why? Wasn't he with you? I thought you'd sent him to supervise the cleaning up."

"No, he seems to have skipped the party as well. Never came home it appears. I suppose I'd better look for him and tell him it's over." A little flight would help him to relax and SohRyu could deal with the cleanup himself. Touda had had enough of people for one day.

"Yes, it's going to be dark soon." There had never been an assassination attempt under SohRyu's rule, but the dragon did have more than enough enemies. His only son and heir might easily be seen as a target.

"And Touda?"

He stopped already outside. "Yes?"

"... Thank you." It didn't come nearly as easily to the big dragon as to the little girl. 


	83. Chapter 83

Title: Night-time Sneaking Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Kijin Prompt: 075. Shade.  
Word Count: 477.  
Rating: PG Summary: Touda's out for a night-time walk, but to his surprise he isn't the only one.  
Author's Notes: I started this with the fist sentence and no idea what I'd do after that. I'm honestly surprised I never had to edit it out.

He liked the night, the darkness the shadows. They hid him even from the few others that might be about at this time. Not that he had any good reason to be sneaking around. He didn't like to be seen, didn't like the suspicious glances he received wherever he went. The shadows hid him, spared him those looks, though they would probably get even worse, if he ever got caught. He shouldn't take the risk of sneaking around Tenku in the middle of the night. It wasn't worth losing what little trust he'd been able to regain from his fellow shiki.

It was so nice to be able to walk around freely for once, though. Alone in the dark he could revisit places he'd once loved and almost recapture that feeling.

Silently he opened the garden door and slipped outside. There was a trick to this. If you didn't keep your other hand pressed against the door in just the right spot until you'd pulled down the handle the door would snap open with a cracking sound. Not that it was loud enough that anybody was likely to hear him at this late hour. Even if there had been any bedrooms nearby the sound would hardly have attracted any attention. It would only have startled Touda himself.

He might also wake Tenku himself, of course, but the palace was used to people moving around inside him while he slept and Touda suspected that he was aware of his late night walk anyway. He'd spoken to him a few times on his first such walks, but apparently accepted that walking helped Touda when he couldn't sleep.

This garden had once been one of his favourite places in spring and summer. It had always been beautiful, full of flowers and blossoming trees. Now wasn't the time for them, but alone in the darkness Touda could almost smell the flowers again, almost hear the songs of birds that were fast asleep.

The crack of the door rang loud in the silence of the night. Touda started and quickly disappeared under the nearest bush. Had he been caught? Who else would come here in the middle of the night?

The sound and vibrations of steps trying to be quiet. Someone very clumsy or inexperienced was sneaking down a path not too far from him. Against his better judgement Touda slithered over to see.

The sound of a bird landing and then changing to human shape. The two shiki hurried towards each other. A meeting, a kiss.

Touda's tongue flickered out to taste the air. Ah, of course! He was dating a sparrow, though?

The whisper of fabric being removed.

What?!

Touda made no more effort at silence as he switched back to his human shape and didn't even noticed the cracking of branches with which he startled the lovers apart.

"Kijin!" 


	84. Chapter 84

Title: Changes Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Kijin, Tenkou, SohRyu Prompt: 082. If.  
Word Count: 487.  
Rating: G Summary: Tenkou is looking for inspiration for her homework.  
Author's Notes: I was going to do an AU story for this, but when I started to think about what I could change I got this idea instead.

"Hey Kijin," Tenkou asked suddenly in the middle of dinner. "If you could change one thing about your life, what would you choose?"

"Do you mean changing the way I live now, or going back in time and fixing a mistake I made in the past?" Kijin asked.

"Anything," said Tenkou. "It could be something you never had any control over, like ... giving yourself another sibling. The only rule is that it can be only one change."

Kijin thought about it. "I suppose I'd go back to last year and invite the new girl to my birthday party. Back then I forgot, because I hardly knew her and now she thinks I don't like her. Maybe if I'd invited her we could have been friends."

"That's a good idea," Tenkou agreed. "But it won't help me with my homework. I don't have a classmate I didn't invite to my birthday party."

"You could change something else," SohRyu reminded her. "If I could change something about my life, I'd bring the Golden Emperor back. Then I'd have a lot more spare time to spend with you two."

Tenkou shook her head. "I don't want the Golden Emperor. I don't even know him. How about you, Touda? What would you change?"

It was the logical next step in the conversation and he really shouldn't have been surprised, but the question still caught him completely unprepared.

What would he change about his life? At first glance it looked like an easy choice. He would have preferred not to have been imprisoned for centuries. But if he'd just not have been imprisoned, the others would still hate him for being a mass murderer. If he hadn't flipped out and killed all those people, he wouldn't have been imprisoned or lost all his friends. He wouldn't want to be the kind of person who'd put up with the things that had happened back then, though.

Maybe if there'd never been a war, but then he'd never have realised the truth about the Golden Emperor. It had been a painful lesson, but better than to continue to admire a monster.

Perhaps, if he'd never come to GenSouKai and never met any of them in the first place, but then he'd have had nowhere to go when he'd run away and he couldn't have stayed with the master who'd sold his mother.

If his mother had never been sold, he might have stayed, but then they'd both still be slaves of a cruel and abusive master. No, if he really had one wish free to alter his fate, Touda would choose to never have been born. That wasn't something one ought to tell a sweet innocent little girl like Tenkou who had no idea what a cruel and terrible place the world could be, though.

"I suppose I'd change my hair colour," he said. "I always thought I should have had black hair." 


	85. Chapter 85

Title: Tenkou's Homework Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Tenkou (Touda, Rikugou, Kijin, SohRyu, Genbu and the Golden Emperor mentioned)  
Prompt: 086. Choices.  
Word Count: 908.  
Rating: G Summary: Just what does Tenkou want to change about her life.  
Author's Notes: The last ficlet felt somehow incomplete, so I decided to explore Tenkou's thoughts more deeply. It turned out to also be an exploration of who the big influences in her life are and how well she understands the adults around her. (Better than I expected, I found.)

Tenkou sat in front of her exercise book, feet swinging off the too big chair. She still didn't know what to write. The teacher's suggestion of adding a sibling to her family didn't work for her. She already had a perfectly fine brother, even if he didn't always have time to play with her and hadn't been much help with this assignment. She wouldn't want to change Kijin for the world. Then he wouldn't be Kijin anymore and she loved her brother just the way he was.

Taking back an action she regretted wasn't a bad idea either. It would certainly please her teacher, but she just couldn't think of anything she regretted that was big enough. She regretted not leaving a peace of cake for Kijin when he'd been late for lunch last week, but the sort of magic implied in her assignment shouldn't be wasted on something so petty.

Her father's suggestion of wishing the Golden Emperor back scared her. She'd never met the emperor and wasn't quite sure what to think of him. According to her father's tales he was simply the most wonderful and admirable shiki in existence, absolutely perfect, in fact. Both Touda and Rikugou had told her that there was no such thing as perfection, though. On completely separate occasions and in completely different context, even. It was a rare thing that Touda and Rikugou agreed about something this deeply.

Rikugou, she knew was a very wise and learned shiki. He was full of theories as well as knowledge about people.

Touda was much more practical minded and less educated, but at least in Tenkou's opinion he was at least as smart as Rikugou and even more experienced.

Neither of them seemed to share her father's opinion of the Golden Emperor and they weren't the only ones either. When other shiki spoke of the emperor their voices often seemed to carry hints of a different story that Tenkou suspected she was just too young to piece together. She'd asked some of them to tell her about the emperor, but they'd only told her general facts or said that it was too complicated for her to understand.

The most worrying reaction had been Touda's. The hellfire serpent, whom she respected more than almost anybody else, had refused to talk about the Golden Emperor. She could imagine only two possible reasons for that. Either Touda thought it was too scary a story for a little girl or the mighty serpent himself was afraid. She hoped it was the first, because something Touda was afraid of had to be too terrible to contemplate.

No, all in all Tenkou was quite happy with the emperor being away and wouldn't mind at all, if he never came back. That her father didn't have as much time for her as he wanted to was sad, but she could live with it. He was a very good ruler after all and that was what all of GenSouKai needed, herself included. Genbu had taught her that. She had the servants and Kijin and Touda to turn to when Daddy didn't have time for her.

That left Touda's suggestion. He'd obviously lied when he's said that he'd change his hair colour. She'd have known that even if she hadn't seen the look her father had given the serpent. That was okay, though. Touda had every right to keep a private wish to himself and changing something she didn't like about herself sounded like a passable solution anyway.

There was a lot Tenkou didn't like about herself. Changing her looks was rather frivolous, though. It wasn't a real change. What difference would it make in her life, if she had a different hair or eye colour?

What Tenkou really needed was to be older, wiser and stronger. She didn't want to be a helpless little girl that didn't understand things and was talked down to. Maybe she should write about what life would be like, if she were older?

But would that really make her wiser, stronger and more powerful? What if the real reason she didn't understand so many things was that she was too stupid and not too young?

She was very small and thin for her age so most likely she'd grow up to be a small weakly woman and her powers wouldn't be all that great either.

In the long run she'd grow up anyway so the change wouldn't make a lasting difference. Maybe she'd be stronger, if she were male? Or would it be better to be more intelligent? Just go for strength? It didn't matter whether you were male or female, if you were the strongest of them all, but even, if she were physically strong, others would defeat her with their powers.

Could she ask to just not be herself? But then who would she be? Kijin? He was older and stronger, but still just a child. Maybe her father who was in charge of all of GenSouKai? But no, that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted to be free, make her own decisions, not to be tied down by responsibilities. She wanted to be like Tsuzuki or Touda, powerful, independent and cool.

And all of a sudden she knew exactly what she wanted and it had nothing at all to do with who she was and what she looked like.

'If I could change anything I like,' she wrote. 'I'd make myself a hellfire shiki.' 


	86. Chapter 86

Title: Pirate Treasure Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Kijin, Tenkou, Genbu Prompt: 050. Spade.  
Word Count: 550.  
Rating: G Summary: Just what does Tenkou need to borrow Genbu's spade for?  
Author's Notes: I was originally going to use Rikugou instead of Genbu and perhaps the role would have suited him better, but Genbu rarely gets more than a line or two from me, so here's Genbu as POV character for a change.

"Can I borrow your spade?" Tenkou asked Genbu with shining innocent eyes.

The old shiki regarded the little girl thoughtfully. She was covered in mud from head to toe.

"It's a little too big and heavy for you to use, I'm afraid." Besides she wasn't supposed to need one. Children asking for odd objects were usually up to something that didn't meet parental approval.

"Oh, that's okay," Tenkou assured him. "I'm not going to use it. Touda and Kijin are doing all the digging."

Well, Touda could be trusted to know how and where to handle a spade. Kijin on the other hand was still young enough to get strange ideas.

"I think," Genbu decided. "I'd better take it to Touda myself."

"It's not a weapon," Tenkou said with a little pout.

"No, but it's heavy and bigger than you are. I wouldn't want you to fall and hurt yourself."

Granted, he was probably exaggerating the dangers of carrying a spade, but he was curious and just because Tenkou had mentioned Touda's name didn't mean the serpent was indeed aware and in approval of the plan. Just in case it turned out that Touda hadn't been informed yet and was too busy to supervise the children he could provide some adult supervision.

Besides, he wasn't entirely sure Kijin knew how to use a spade. He doubted the kid had ever done any gardening in his life. SohRyu had slaves for that.

Tenkou led him into the gardens of Tenku and to a rather large flowerbed that looked like several tractors had already been through it today. Kijin was still digging around randomly while Touda waited next to the flowerbed muddy and scowling.

Genbu raised an eyebrow at the serpent nodding towards the devastation. He doubted SohRyu would be happy when he saw this and they all knew who'd be held responsible.

"Tenkou buried SohRyu's keys in there," Touda explained. "And lost the place."

"I drew a map," Tenkou defended herself. "And wrote down the exact number of steps, but we kept winding up in different places when we followed it."

"But why did you hide your father's key in a flowerbed in the first place?" Genbu asked. "Wouldn't just pocketing have been fun enough?" Tenkou wasn't known for playing pranks, so he suspected that it would have been quite a while before SohRyu would have thought of asking her to empty her pockets, if he ever would have.

"It's not a prank. We were just playing pirates and needed a treasure to bury," Tenkou explained.

"And you allowed that?" Genbu asked Touda. He'd thought the serpent was smarter than that, a lot smarter in fact.

"I didn't even know," Touda hissed. Ignorance wouldn't save him from SohRyu's wrath. "They only asked me for help when they realised how furious their father will be when he finds out."

Genbu sighed and folded back his sleeves.

"Stand aside, Kijin," he ordered. "And see how a proper Earth shiki does it."

It might not be right to save the children from the consequences of their stupidity, but Touda was clearly innocent and he'd most likely end up receiving the worst punishment. It would be better, if at least the keys were there when the serpent had to explain the condition of the garden. 


	87. Chapter 87

Title: Muddy Keys, Crying Slaves And Other Problems A Dragon Should Not Have To Deal With Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou, Kijin, Genbu, SohRyu, a maid and a head slave Prompt: 077. Where?  
Word Count: 874.  
Rating: G Summary: SohRyu's in a hurry and can't find his keys.  
Author's Notes: Sequel to the Spade prompt. The Dragon is a difficult POV character. I don't think I really got into his head the way I wanted to here.

SohRyu put down the letter he'd been reading and pondered how to proceed. This situation could easily deteriorate into a major diplomatic issue, so he'd have to manoeuvre carefully.

How best to react in order not to offend without giving up his agenda? His eyes wandered across the room as he searched for an inspiration and happened to come to rest on the clock.

Oh no! Was it really this late already? He had to meet Suzaku in ten minutes and knowing the fire shiki's amount of patience – or lack thereof – he really shouldn't keep her waiting.

He jumped up, quickly threw whatever papers he might need into a case, grabbed blindly for his keys as he rushed towards the door and his hand met empty air.

He turned to look. Indeed the shelf was empty and the keys weren't on the floor next to it either. But where else could they be? His pockets were empty, the case contained only paper.

He yelled for a servant, then at her when she didn't know what he'd done with the keys either. She burst into tears which immediately brought the head servant down upon him. The woman had a magical instinct for knowing whenever one of her staff was in trouble and was afraid of nothing when protecting her own.

Luckily she regarded SohRyu as one of her own as well and this was certainly not the time to point out that in fact it was the other way around.

After telling him off for making the poor innocent maid cry, she promised to search for the keys while he was gone and let him back in when he returned.

"They probably just fell behind the shelf," she reassured him while patting the maid's back comfortingly. "Or slipped into a crack in the floor. I'll have some of the men move the furniture, but there's no need for you to stand here and watch. I know you have important things to worry about, so just go to your meeting and let me handle the household."

Perhaps she was right. He did feel a little guilty for blowing up at the maid like that. She probably hadn't even been the one who'd dusted here today and he could trust his slaves. They were all fine hard-working shiki who did their best to keep the palace in perfect condition.

He was just about to leave when another door opened and four muddy shapes walked in.

"Oh dear," said the first one in Genbu's voice. "It appears we are too late."

"Um ... were you looking for this?" Touda, easily recognisable thanks to his visor and not quite as dirty as the rest, held out a handful of mud that contained something vaguely key-shaped. "I was just going to wash them and put them back."

"What in the world are you doing with my keys?" SohRyu thundered. "You have no business even touching them." Just thinking of all the places Touda would be able to get into with those keys made him feel sick.

Touda gulped and the two smaller shapes hastily disappeared behind the backs of the adult ones.

"I merely helped look for them," the serpent offered. "And thought you might like them cleaned before using them again."

"It was Tenkou that took them," Kijin's voice came from behind Genbu.

SohRyu growled. He felt like drowning the lot of them, but knew he'd regret it later.

"She just borrowed them for a moment," Touda assured him hastily. "But then lost them in a flowerbed and it took us a while to find them again."

"Genbu found them in the end. They'd been so covered in mud that we couldn't see them anymore," Kijin threw in.

"But now they're back and just a little dirty," Touda concluded.

Borrowed his keys? What for? She was too young to go out on her own or have any business looking into his locked drawers and cupboards. And there was even less reason to take them out into the garden. Just a little dirty? That certainly was the understatement of the year. Did Touda honestly expect him to touch the keys in this condition?

SohRyu roared with rage and spit a fountain of water at the group. It wasn't enough to drown them, but it helped him blow off steam and they desperately needed a bath anyway.

Three soaked and sputtering shiki looked at him accusingly. The maid sniffled some more at the sight of the water puddles. Touda remained crumpled on the floor.

Ups, always be careful when washing fire shiki. In fact to be sure not to affect their powers one did best to leave them to wash themselves. Oh well, Touda would recover. He could take worse.

The dragon took a deep breath, roared and took another deep breath. Then he picked up his keys from where Touda had dropped them.

"I have an appointment to keep," he announced. "You three go and dry off. And you," he pointed at Touda. "See me in my office when I return."

Then he rushed out the door trying to think of a way to explain his lateness to Suzaku. He'd decide on a suitable punishment for Touda after the meeting. 


	88. Chapter 88

Title: Kijin's Problem Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Kijin, Tenku Prompt: 087. Life.  
Word Count: 938.  
Rating: PG Summary: Kijin has a problem he doesn't want anybody to know about, but what can Touda do about this?  
Author's Notes: Maybe a bit far-fetched for the prompt. Or maybe not at all. ;)

"Um ... Touda? Can we talk?" Kijin stood in the door to the computer room fidgeting.

"Sure," Touda returned suppressing a sigh and saved his work. "What's the problem?"

"Uh ... Could we go somewhere more private for this?"

Touda glanced around. "We are alone."

"Not completely."

Of course not. The palace walls had ears literally, but Kijin had grown up inside Tenku. It had never seemed to bother him before.

"Very well, lets go outside." And hope that nobody came looking for him in the meantime.

"Can we fly into the desert?" Kijin asked. "I really don't want anyone to overhear this."

"Not unless I tell SohRyu where I'm going and he'll want to know why."

"Oh please don't! He can't find out!"

Figured.

"You could just ask me not to tell, you know," Tenku cut in. "Or you might want to try to act less suspiciously next time and not attract my attention in the first place."

So Tenku wasn't routinely monitoring all of his conversations? Touda filed that information away for later.

"Why don't we just go to the park," he suggested to Kijin. "It's raining and most shiki will be busy with work right now. With a little luck there'll be nobody there."

"You'll get wet," Tenku commented gleefully.

Touda glared at the nearest wall.

"Alright, but we have to make sure it's really empty," Kijin agreed. "If we find a single frog shiki there, I can't tell you."

So they walked to the park in the pouring rain, then once around the park to make sure there wasn't anybody there. Kijin even insisted that they couldn't sit under a tree, because somebody might be hiding in the branches, so they chose a bench on an empty lawn not too near by the pond, because a fish shiki might be swimming there. Touda was soaked to the skin, cold and miserable by then.

"So what is this big secret of yours?" he demanded a little gruffly.

"I ..." the boy hedged and promptly clammed up. "Nothing."

"Kijin, we came here in the rain and got all wet, reducing my powers for days most likely, so you could tell me something I thought was terribly important and now you tell me it's nothing?"

"I ... uh ... um ..."

"Well, if you're not going to talk, I'm leaving," Touda said and got up. "I have work to do and it's dry inside Tenku."

"No wait!" Kijin grabbed his arm and held on for dear life. "I need your help. I ... My girlfriend's pregnant!"

"Your ... The little sparrow I caught you with in the garden?" He'd thought he'd prevented that disaster.

"Who? Oh no, that was a one time thing. Never saw her again."

"The rat shiki then? I thought it was over between you." That one would be hard to explain to SohRyu. The dragon wasn't fond of rats at all.

"Nah, not her. It's been over for months. I'm dating a cat at the moment, but she's not the pregnant one."

"Oh, did you get the pretty owlet after all?" Touda said referring to the only other love interest Kijin had ever mentioned to him.

Kijin grinned like the cat that got the cream for a moment before remembering his predicament. "Yeah, but that one never would without ..." He blushed. "You know."

"Ah, wise girl," Touda nodded. Or most likely wise parents. He should have kept a better eye on Kijin's love affairs as well. And provided condoms. "So the proud mother of your firstborn and heir is going to be?"

"A hare," Kijin admitted. "I never mentioned her to you, because it was only a short rebound fling between the rat and the cat, but now she's pregnant and she doesn't believe in abortion."

"Nor in contraception either it seems," Touda commented. Hares were like that. He vaguely wondered when Kijin had slept with the owlet, if he'd gone from the rat, who'd been his first, straight to the hare and then the cat who he claimed to still be dating now. "Are you sure it's really yours?"

"What?"

"Is it really your baby? If you only dated her for a short time, she might have had another boyfriend right before or after you." Not to mention that, if Kijin had had another lover on the side, Touda saw no good reason for the girl not to have done the same.

"She says it's mine anyway," Kijin answered. "You've got to help me, Touda. Father just can't find out."

Touda sighed. "And how do you expect me to prevent that? It's not something you can easily hide."

Kijin could deny everything, of course, claim that the girl was lying and he'd never slept with her, but if a paternity test proved her claims later on SohRyu would be even more furious with the boy for lying about it. It'd look bad on the whole family and probably have political repercussions as well.

"I can only give you one piece of advice," he told the boy. "Tell your father yourself, before he finds out from the girl's angry parents."

"Oh, they don't know either."

"Wonderful," Touda hissed. "Just wonderful. And how long do you think that's going to last?"

"Father is going to be furious. He'll kill me for this," Kijin whimpered. "And then he'll make me marry her, just when everything was going so well with the kitten."

"Well," said Touda. "You should have thought about that when you still had time to use contraception. It's too late now."

Somehow he couldn't bring himself to feel really sorry for Kijin. 


	89. Chapter 89

Title: Parent-Teacher Conference Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Teacher Prompt: 100. Writer's Choice.  
Word Count: 1.672.  
Rating: G Summary: Tenkou's teacher has read her essay and is just a little worried.  
Author's Notes: Inspired by JJ's review of my last post.

The teacher suppressed a sigh as another pair of over-ambitious parents finally walked out of her classroom. Their poor little boy really was doing the best he could, even if his grades weren't always perfect. How many children had perfect grades? He was just an average little shiki-child.

Her only wish concerning the student was to see him smile every once in a while, but much as they professed to love him his parents didn't show any concern about his happiness. They only cared about his grades claiming that they'd ensure his happiness in his adult life. Who was his teacher to decide whether it was worth sacrificing childhood happiness for?

Well, that one was a lost cause. As a teacher you learned very fast that you couldn't help every child and when the parents weren't on your side it wasn't worth the fight. She'd given up battling windmills long ago.

There was one last parent to talk to tonight, though and she couldn't possibly give up this child no matter how nervous the thought of talking with her father made her. Little Tenkou was an adorable child and a good student, yet the teacher worried for her, because it sometimes seemed like she wasn't getting any parental attention at all. Normally she'd have given the girl's parents a stern talking to when nobody had bothered to show up for Tenkou on the first parents' day, but she was only a common shiki and Tenkou's father was the guardian of the East. Besides allowances had to be made for his single parent status. Maybe he just hadn't managed to free himself from other obligations.

He had never shown up for any other meetings or school events either, though and this time the teacher had an issue that she felt really needed addressing. So she'd written a formal letter asking to meet with a family member or legal guardian today. The only legal guardian Tenkou had was her father of course. The girl occasionally spoke of an elder brother, but the teacher was confident that Kijin wasn't old enough to attend parent-teacher conferences. A small, scared part of her hoped that a friendly little known uncle or cousin would miraculously appear in her classroom door instead.

Apparently the universe didn't feel like fulfilling wishes today, though. The shiki that did enter the room with a polite, if rather reserved greeting, might not have been the guardian of the East, but the teacher felt anything but relieved at the sight. If there was one shiki she felt less ready to meet than SohRyu ...

Well, it couldn't be helped. He was here and she had to deal with him. Hopefully she was too insignificant to anger him.

"Commander Touda." It was supposed to be a greeting but sounded more like a frightened squeak to her own ears. "I wasn't aware that you were related to Tenkou."

"I'm not," the serpent hissed causing a shiver to run down her spine. "Lord SohRyu couldn't make it today and I happened to be free."

He didn't seem to be about to eat her, so maybe that was just his normal voice.

"That is most ... inconvenient," she returned in a hopefully halfway steady voice. "I asked to see a family member, you see, because I need to talk to someone who is close to Tenkou, has a hand in her upbringing, if at all possible."

"Oh, that's alright then," Touda assured her coiling up in front of her desk.

She stared at the unblinking reptile eyes for a moment. He seemed very peaceful and relaxed the way he lay there, but still. This shiki had been sentenced to eternal imprisonment for mass murder once. He was the ultimate war criminal, pardoned only at the request of SohRyu's shinigami master and against the will of everybody else.

"It's alright?" she repeated incredulously.

"I may not be a family member, but I do live in Tenku with the family. I watch the children for SohRyu sometimes when he's busy."

A mass murderer? She hoped her horror wasn't showing on her face. "He seems to be busy a lot."

"He has a whole world to rule in the emperor's absence. We all depend on him to make the right decisions. That isn't always easy."

She wondered whether he'd learned that speech by heart.

"His children need their father as well, especially since they don't have a mother."

"He makes a point of seeing them everyday, but he doesn't always have time to supervise their games or answer all their questions. That's where I come in. They usually take their questions to me."

"And who watches them during the day?"

"A household slave, a very motherly older woman. SohRyu is very aware of children's need for a mother figure as you can see."

Trying to read between the lines she mostly saw that she was most likely talking to the right person after all. Unless she wanted to lower herself to talking with the slave.

"You say you answer the children's questions. Do you also supervise their homework?"

Touda actually blinked for he first time since he'd entered the room. "To be honest, that has never occurred to me." At her incredulous stare he added: "I never went to an actual school myself, you see. I'll check with the slave-woman. Perhaps it is part of her duties."

The teacher nodded. "Tenkou has never asked you any school related questions either?"

"Of course she has. She asks me all sorts of questions. Why?"

"Well, I ..." She stared down at the essay she'd meant to question SohRyu about. Could she even explain her problem with it to Touda without insulting him? It looked both a lot more worrying and innocent all of a sudden. "You have to understand that I expected to talk to her father and thought that he was checking her assignments. I'd meant to ask him what he'd thought about this essay and whether he'd discussed it with Tenkou."

Touda stared at the exercise book she placed in front of him, but didn't move to touch it. "If I could change anything I like, I'd make myself a hellfire shiki?" he read out loud. "Tenkou wrote this?"

"Yes," she confirmed. "I thought it a rather strange wish from a sweet little girl like her."

"It is a very strange thing to wish for," Touda agreed to her surprise. "Why would she want that?"

"Well, in most children I'd say it's a wish to be feared, but Tenkou is such a sweet, gentle and happy little girl that it doesn't seem likely. She never mentioned the assignment to you?"

"She asked all of us what we'd choose," Touda allowed.

"And you said?"

"That I'd change my hair colour." Her incredulity must have been obvious in her face, because Touda continued: "She is a bit too young to understand some things and I thought it a harmless and funny answer that she'd enjoy."

"Did she ever say something like this before? Show a particular interest in your powers?"

Touda shook his head. "Not that I remember. I most definitely didn't discuss them with her. She asked general questions about all the elements sometimes and how each was best used. She should remember that I told her that fire is a difficult element to control and she has seen what happens when Suzaku loses that control."

"Not you, though?"

"I can't. That is exactly the point. Nobody should want to be a hellfire shiki. When you have a power like that you must never ever lose control. Not for a moment. I did once and you know what happened."

"Does Tenkou know about that?"

"Doesn't everybody?"

"I meant, have you discussed it with her? Are you sure she is aware of the connection with your powers?" Her hands were shaking and she hid them under the table even though she was sure Touda had already seen it anyway. He knew what he was and what that meant to others. Somehow it made her feel a little foolish anyway.

"No," he said. "How do you explain war and battlefields, slaughter, to an innocent little girl?"

He looked haunted, no different from so many common soldiers she'd heard speak of the war.

"Maybe ... There is child-friendly material to teach the war in class, but it can't take away the fact that she knows most of the main characters in this story personally and she's sure to have further questions." And who would she take her questions to? They both knew he'd have to explain this someday. "It is important that she learns the responsibilities that come with great power. Considering who her father is it is probably the most important lesson she has to learn."

Somehow she felt strangely convinced that Touda would be better suited to teaching this lesson than she was, better than SohRyu even.

"She is so young and innocent." Touda looked down at the essay again. "I can't believe this. Why would she even want that?"

"That's why I asked whether you'd seen it," she tried to explain. "If it was actually written for you to read, it was probably just meant as an 'I love you', or maybe she's addressing her father here, reminding him that she gets more attention from you than she does from him."

"But what has that got to do with hellfire? She could have asked for more attention from her father. He practically suggested that."

She smiled. "Ask her. And tell her father it wouldn't hurt, if he did take a look at her homework from time to time."

"Or attended parent-teacher conferences?" Touda asked.

"Or attended parent-teacher conferences."

It would be interesting to get a chance to compare these two, the one who'd fathered Tenkou and the one who'd raised her. Which one really was the deciding influence on her life? From her current knowledge of them the teacher couldn't tell, but neither was she sure which would be the better choice. 


	90. Chapter 90

Title: A Hare.  
Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, SohRyu Prompt: 081. How?  
Word Count: 389.  
Rating: PG Summary: Kijin has finally told his father.  
Author's Notes: So this time SohRyu's fist outburst of temper would hit Kijin and not Touda. What would it be like for Touda then?

SohRyu let himself drop into the chair beside Touda with a groan and hid his face in his hands.

Touda focused all his attention on the screen, but the dragon didn't go away. After what seemed like an eternity Touda risked a quizzical glance. He'd rarely seen SohRyu this dishevelled.

"My son impregnated a hare," SohRyu moaned. "A hare!"

"Better the hare than the rat," Touda offered. "Though personally, I liked the owl best. She seemed to have a brain."

"Owl?" SohRyu repeated.

"She was his favourite from the start, but hard to get," Touda explained. "And insisted on contraception anyway."

"You knew," SohRyu accused.

"He told me a few days ago."

"Why didn't you tell me? I'm his father."

"Precisely. You're his father and it's his girlfriend and his baby. Seemed only proper that he should be the one to tell you."

"Right." SohRyu folded his arms on the desk and hid his face in them.

Was he going to cry or go to sleep? Either way Touda wished he'd do it somewhere else. This was too close for comfort. He tried to return to his work.

"My son impregnated a hare," SohRyu started once again. "How?"

"Er ... I didn't exactly ask him for those details, but I'd say the usual way."

"Usual way?"

"Um ... Birds and bees, remember?" This was getting way too uncomfortable. "You were furious when I explained it to Tenkou a while ago."

SohRyu sighed. "And you couldn't have explained to Kijin instead?"

"He never asked. And I thought you had anyway. He definitely knew what he was doing with that hare. If he didn't know when he did it with the rat, the owlet must have explained it."

"Didn't you once tell me he was shy?"

"He was back then."

"How?" SohRyu moaned again running a hand through his hair and messing it up even more. "How could my only son impregnate a hare?"

"Didn't we just go over that?"

SohRyu glared at him. "You know what I meant."

Touda wasn't sure he did, but didn't want to argue.

"I think I need a drink," SohRyu decided finally getting up.

He wasn't drunk, yet? Well, at least it didn't look like he'd skinned Kijin and he hadn't even mentioned punishing Touda. All in all it seemed to have gone over well. 


	91. Chapter 91

Title: She's A Diamond Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Kijin's fiancée Prompt: 048. Diamond.  
Word Count: 704.  
Rating: PG Summary: Touda first meets the mother of Kijin's child.  
Author's Notes: "She's a diamond. And that's the hardest kind of stone. It usually survives." I don't guarantee the completeness or correctness of the quote, but it's from the musical Evita and I couldn't get it out of my mind once I'd written Touda's first thoughts about the girl. Originally I meant this to be about a diamond Kijin had given his future wife as a token of love, but at that point I realised she was the diamond. (I don't know anything about Chinese wedding traditions, but I doubt it includes exchanging rings at least in the original version that I'd suspect would be more likely to be found in GenSouKai. That one is of European origin, if I remember correctly.)

For a moment she just stood in the door reminding Touda of a little rabbit, stiff with fear, ready to be eaten. Kijin had forgotten to save her a chair, he realised, and now the only free seat was between him and Rikugou, because Rikugou always kept his distance from Touda.

The moment passed however, her nose twitched, her whiskers quivered and then she walked in and took the only available chair as if she had never expected any better. The rabbit impression must be wrong, though. After all this fangless wisp of a girl had withstood not only Kijin's, but also SohRyu's pressure to abort the child she was expecting and managed to force Kijin into an unwanted marriage. She must have a dragon's courage underneath the scared surface. Touda no longer doubted that she would make a good partner for Kijin.

Hare shiki did not belong on the battlefield of course, but as a guardian's wife she didn't have to command armies. Genbu and Rikugou would teach her diplomacy and politics. She'd be a force to be reckoned with in meetings and ballrooms.

Wide frightened eyes met his, whiskers and ears shivered in recognition, but she didn't freeze again. She had to realise that she'd have to deal with him on a regular basis, though she might not yet have found out that he lived with her new family.

"Commander Touda," she greeted with too much respect considering her position.

Touda well remembered the confusion of suddenly rising in status and finding that you'd never learned the manners that applied to the new situation.

"You must be Kijin's new fiancée," he said eyes resting pointedly on her swelling belly. Just because he felt a touch of sympathy for her didn't mean he had to be nice. It'd only confuse people.

She placed a paw over her belly protectively.

"Daiya," she said with a nod of confirmation.

"Diamond?" He felt the corners of his mouth twitch against his will. "How fitting." Let her interpret that however she wanted to.

"You are too kind," she answered with an honest smile this time that showed her rodent teeth. "I'm well aware that hares are hardly beautiful to your kind. You need not pretend."

"A diamond has more important characteristics than beauty," Touda returned. "Beauty doesn't save the roses from the frost."

She blinked, aware enough of her shortcomings, but not of her strength it seemed.

"I think Kijin will find you a more suitable partner than he realises now," he offered by way of explanation.

"He didn't tell you my name?" It was more observation than question.

"He didn't tell me much about you at all. Kijin isn't very talkative."

"He doesn't love me anymore," she concluded. "I feared as much."

"He isn't talkative," Touda repeated. "That he doesn't sing your praises to any random acquaintance is hardly surprising." Of course there was also the matter of not saving her a seat which she hadn't even mentioned, but couldn't have missed.

She shook her head. "You are hardly a random acquaintance. Don't deny it, I know him well enough to tell."

"I live here," he allowed. "So he sees more of me than others and might talk of me more often."

"He speaks of you like an older brother ... or a close cousin perhaps, someone he goes to for advice."

"Sometimes," Touda amended.

"I think that you should know that I didn't mean to force his hand," she continued, both paws resting on her belly now. "I do love him, you see and I would let him have his freedom, if I could, but I also love my child and they gave me the choice to either marry him or kill the baby. Had it been up to me, I could have raised my child alone and he could have had his freedom, but alas, they were too worried about propriety and a life is more precious than freedom."

He had to revise his first impression. She had the determination of a commander even if she lacked the fangs of a common soldier. Perhaps she would command her own army someday, though she'd have to do it from a safe position in the back. 


	92. Chapter 92

Title: Scared Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Kijin Prompt: 098. Writer's Choice.  
Word Count: 294.  
Rating: G Summary: Kijin is looking for advice on being a father.  
Author's Notes: Yes, Kijin knows Touda knows a lot about this topic, but Touda himself doesn't realise it. Besides he's not too happy with Kijin's behaviour towards Daiya.

"I'm scared," said Kijin when Touda finally found him sitting behind the garden shed.

"Of the wedding?" Touda asked. He'd never married himself, so he didn't really understand it, but he'd heard that a lot of people got scared before their weddings and Kijin was very young to get married and didn't even love the girl.

"No," Kijin said, then after a moment: "Yes, that too, but I'm more scared of the birth."

"The birth?" Was that a good sign? It sounded almost as if he did love Daiya after all, or at least cared for her wellbeing.

"Well, what happens afterwards, to be exact. I mean, am I not much too young for this? I have no idea how to be a father."

No, luck for poor Daija after all.

"I don't know either," he admitted. "I've never had any children. You could ask Daiya, though." And at least bond a little.

"She's never been a mother before either," Kijin pointed out.

"No, but she's been reading books about it and talking to her parents."

"Hares," Kijin said with more disdain than even SohRyu had ever managed to put into the word.

"Hares tend to have lots of children," Touda tried to remind him. "I'm sure they know a lot about raising them."

"I'm not going to ask for help from a bunch of rat-faced, twitchy-nosed cowards."

He hadn't been picky about that when he'd fathered the baby.

"At least have a look in the library then. If there are books about how to be a mother, there are probably ones about being a father as well."

Kijin frowned at him, but got up to return to the palace anyway.

"I hate books," Touda heard him mumble just before he disappeared from sight. 


	93. Chapter 93

Title: Magical Moment Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, SohRyu Prompt: 099. Writer's Choice.  
Word Count: 539.  
Rating: G Summary: Somebody's up in the middle of the night.  
Author's Notes: I should have known I was going to make Kijin a father when I did the birth prompt. Never mind, though. We'll just continue a few weeks after the birth.

A sound from downstairs had woken him, Touda was sure, even though everything was silent now.

"Tenku?" he asked. "Are you awake?"

There was no answer from the palace which meant either that he was asleep or that his attention was focused elsewhere. Touda considered waking him, but decided against it. It was unlikely that an intruder would have gotten this far into the palace without raising an alarm and Tenku would be grumpy, if woken up for nothing.

Most likely it was servants at work or maybe a sleepless family member. If it was an intruder after all, though, Touda had his claws to defend himself until help arrived. Tenku would not miss it, if a fight broke out inside him.

He slipped out of bed and snuck into the corridor barefoot. No sound nor light and no unfamiliar smells in the air either.

Once he got downstairs, though, he did see light in the corridor that led to the kitchen. Was the cook up early to prepare something special for breakfast?

But the voice he heard once he reached the kitchen door wasn't the cook's.

"I know it isn't what you're used to, but it tastes fine, trust me. You'll love it and we don't have to wake Mummy."

Touda took one last curious step forward and immediately regretted it when SohRyu looked up from the baby in his arm and right at him.

"Touda? Did she wake you?" The dragon nodded towards his tiny granddaughter. "I'd hoped not to disturb anyone."

"Oh no," Touda lied quickly. "I was just thirsty." He helped himself to a glass of orange juice to prove his claim. "So why're you playing nurse?"

SohRyu had been extremely disappointed by the birth of his first grandchild. Not only had the little shiki been born a girl, but also a hare like her mother. There seemed to be little of her father in her at all.

"Just helping out," the dragon replied with a slight shrug. "Daiya won't trust the servants to handle her, but the poor girl is completely exhausted. She obviously needed her sleep, right Princess."

The baby happily sucked her bottle and didn't comment.

"Shouldn't Kijin be taking care of this?" Touda asked carefully slipping closer. He hadn't had the chance to really see the baby yet. Even now all that was visible among the cloth was a tiny face with twitching whiskers and much too big floppy ears.

SohRyu sighed. "I think he's disappointed. Probably expected to get a son first." He looked down at the little bundle with a proud smile. "A pity. She's such a charming child and they grow up so fast. He'll regret not having paid more attention to these early steps someday."

"She's so small," Touda said, still staring at the twitchy whiskers. "Are they all like this?"

SohRyu nodded. "But not for long. Do you want to hold her?"

Touda stared at the dragon. "Are you sure? I mean, she's so tiny and helpless."

"It's not difficult," SohRyu assured him. "You just have to remember to support her head. Like this, see."

He gently transferred the little bundle into Touda's arm. She yawned, snuggled in and fell asleep. Touda barely dared to breathe. 


	94. Chapter 94

Title: He'll Come Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Tenkou Prompt: 079. When?  
Word Count: 166.  
Rating: G Summary: Touda is waiting.  
Author's Notes: Not much of a story, I guess, especially since I've said much of this before. This time I'm adding a touch of cute little girl, though.

"Do you think Tsuzuki is going to come?" Tenkou asked Touda.

How did she know what he was waiting for?

"No, I know that he's going to come," he returned never taking his eyes off the horizon as if he'd be able to see it there.

Tenkou frowned. "Now?"

"Maybe," Touda said. "But probably not."

"But sometime today?"

"Maybe," Touda repeated.

Tenkou looked at him intently. "Do you actually know when he's going to come?"

"No, but I know he'll come sometime."

"Of course he will. Everybody comes sometime."

"No, they don't. Most humans and a lot of shinigami never visit GenSouKai at all. Tsuzuki dos often, though, so I know that he'll come."

"But you don't know when."

"No."

"And you're still up here waiting."

It wasn't actually a question, but Touda answered it anyway. "Whenever I don't have anything more important to do."

"Isn't that boring?"

"No." He smiled to himself realising that Tenkou would never understand that this was simple truth to him. 


	95. Chapter 95

Title: A Change Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko, Tsuzuki, Rikugou, Hisoka Prompt: 014. Green.  
Word Count: 216.  
Rating: G Summary: Byakko wanted a little change.  
Author's Notes: Okay, this one's funny, I hope. Nothing more to it, though, which is probably why I don't particularly like it.

"Well, I can understand that you wanted a change," Touda walked around the guardian of the west very slowly wondering how to phrase this. "But... green, Byakko?"

Byakko shrugged. "Originally I was just going to dye a little stripe into my hair, but then I spilt some more dye by accident and I just thought, why not. I mean, white hair and white skin? I look like some washed out old rag. At least now I have a little colour."

Tsuzuki threw his arms around his green tiger shiki. "I love it, Byakko. It's absolutely unique."

"You can say that again." commented Rikugou. "Who's ever heard of a green tiger."

"I saw one on TV once," Hisoka remembered. "Green with yellow stripes."

Byakko's stripes were still black, though. Only the once white fur around them was now a deep dark green. He did indeed look anything but washed out, Touda had to give him that. Much better than his own light purple hair. That looked much too sweet and girly.

Come to think of it ...

"Hey, Byakko?" He ran after the tiger. "You wouldn't happen to have any of that dye left, would you?"

Hisoka turned to Rikugou with a slight frown. "A green hellfire serpent?"

"He's a black serpent." Rikugou shrugged. "It won't show."

/lj-cut 


	96. Chapter 96

Title: Rainy Days Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda (Suzaku mentioned)  
Prompt: 062. Spring.  
Word Count: 100!  
Rating: G Summary: Touda thinks about rain.  
Author's Notes: I managed a drabble! I managed a drabble!

It was a rainy spring. Water drops evaporated on Touda's skin whenever he went outside and the wet ground squelched under his feet when he left the paved paths.

The skies were grey. The sun rarely came through. Most fire shiki had holed themselves up inside waiting for the weather to change. Suzaku hadn't set foot out of her home in days as far as Touda knew. Even the Earth shiki were rarely seen about.

Touda smiled faintly to himself. The air smelled fresh and clean and the world was calm and peaceful Fire shiki or not, Touda liked rain. 


	97. Chapter 97

Title: What to do With a Baby Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, Byakko and Rikugou Prompt: 029. Birth.  
Word Count: 138.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Touda doesn't think he can be a father. Or can he?  
Author's Notes: This is another drabble attempt. Failed as usual.

"I still can't believe you knocked up my sister." Byakko glared at Touda.

"You've had nine months to get used to the idea," Touda pointed out continuing to pace nervously.

In truth he could understand perfectly. He still wasn't used to the idea of being a father himself. What was one supposed to do with a baby?

He was a snake not some mammal that knew instinctively. He had no use for babies!

The door opened and they brought out the newborn.

"A white serpent?" Byakko asked. "I didn't know your kind comes in white."

Touda stretched to see. Cuuute!

"They don't," confirmed Rikugou. "This is most unusual."

He reached out his hands to examine the baby.

Touda snatched it away and slung his coils around it protectively.

"Mine!" he hissed.

The tiny white serpent hissed as well. 


	98. Chapter 98

Title: In The End Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, SohRyu, Hisoka Prompt: 032. Sunset.  
Word Count: 837.  
Rating: PG Summary: And all of a sudden it was all over.  
Author's Notes: Sort of character death warning.

"So Tsuzuki decided it was finally time to move on," Hisoka finished with a slight shrug.

Even Touda knew well enough that the boy wasn't as indifferent to Tsuzuki's final death as he tried to appear, nor was he ignorant of the assembled shiki's feelings. Hisoka simply couldn't deal with emotions. His empathy forced them upon him much more intensely than others felt them, so he'd always had to fight them off. He'd never learned how to console someone.

Not that there was any sort of consolation now, not for Touda. Tsuzuki had been so much more to him than just a master who controlled him and lent him his strength. He had been his only friend in a hostile world, the one thing he lived for. He'd been the one who'd freed him from his meant to be eternal prison. Because Tsuzuki had chosen him he' been allowed back among the other shiki of GenSouKai. For almost a century he'd given Touda back his home, though he'd only been just barely tolerated by the others.

And now even that was gone. Once again he'd lost everything.

It wasn't a complete surprise. They'd all felt it when Tsuzuki had passed over and their connection to him suddenly disappeared. Even though they'd still had hope that it might be only temporary Touda had been very aware of the possibility that he'd just lost his only purpose and the likely consequences thereof. He'd always known that his freedom was only temporary after all.

When several minutes passed without anyone coming to seize him and return him to his cell Touda wandered away from the group to sit on a roof by himself. Apparently the others were too distraught to think of that right now.

There was no hurry anyway. Why shouldn't they take the time they needed to deal with their loss first.

No, he wasn't running away. What would be the use? Sooner or later they'd find him anyway and life in hiding didn't seem too tempting to Touda. Whatever hideout he chose would soon turn into another prison. Maybe a slightly more entertaining one than being chained to a wall in the dark, but what kind of life was it, if you had to hide from every living thing? He might be a serpent, but even he wasn't that much of a loner.

He sighed and pulled his knees up to his chest. Far beyond the roofs of the city the sun was sinking. It might well be the last sunset he'd ever have a chance to see. Touda stared at it unseeing.

"There you are." SohRyu's dragon head poked up from below. He looked grey in the pitch darkness of night. "What are you doing up there?"

"Thinking," Touda said. "Remembering Tsuzuki. I like thinking on roofs."

SohRyu shook his head at that last comment, but ignored it otherwise. "He had no time for a good bye visit."

Touda tilted his head trying to follow the direction of the dragon's thoughts. Sometimes he found them rather erratic.

"It would have been nice to have the chance to say good bye," he agreed after a moment.

"I'm sure he still remembers us," SohRyu said. "Human lives are temporary, though. It is their nature to pass away soon. We had his friendship for much longer than is normal for them. Even shinigami rarely stay this long."

"Friendship in general is a very temporary thing," Touda returned still confused about where SohRyo was trying to lead the conversation.

The dragon blinked. Deep philosophical conversations weren't really his thing and he was apparently completely out of his depth with this one.

"You missed lunch," he stated instead.

"Oh?"

"And dinner is getting cold."

"Oh?" Neither fact interested Touda in any way.

"Now look, I understand grief, but there's no reason to starve yourself. You need to eat to keep your strength up."

"What for?"

"Well, for ..." SohRyu blinked again. "Whatever it is you do when you aren't thinking of Tsuzuki."

"Running the occasional computer search?" Touda asked.

Ever since the problem with the wormholes had been fixed there'd been very little use for his computer skills.

"Well, what else do you usually do all day?"

"Wait for Tsuzuki to call," Touda said. "But that's not going to happen anymore so scratch that."

"You can always pick up a new master, you know." SohRyu flew up and settled down beside him. "Just jump out at the next shinigami that comes by and challenge them to an eating contest."

Touda shot the dragon a dark look.

"Well, you seem to be particularly bad at eating. What I actually meant was let them win. Then you'll have a new master to care for in no time."

"It wouldn't be the same. Tsuzuki wasn't really a master. He was a friend."

"Yes, that he was." SohRyu sighed.

Touda sighed as well and very, very cautiously leaned his head against the dragon's shoulder. He was nevertheless surprised when he didn't get it bitten off. 


	99. Chapter 99

Title: Wrong Fandom: Yami No Matsuei Characters: Touda, SohRyu, Rikugou, Tenkou, Kijin Prompt: 035. Sixth Sense.  
Word Count: 838.  
Rating: G.  
Summary: Touda knows something's wrong, but SohRyu has no time for such things.  
Author's Notes: I don't really see Touda as having that kind of sixth sense, but it was the best I could come up with for the prompt. Please consider this story AU from all others.

"We should head back," Touda said after about two hours of flight.

SohRyu shot him an annoyed look. "We haven't even reached the border, yet."

"Still, we should go back. Something's wrong."

"What is wrong and how do you know?" the dragon demanded.

"I ... I don't know," Touda had to admit. "I just have a feeling that something's wrong."

SohRyu snorted. "If there is indeed something wrong we need to get to the border to defend it."

"No," said Touda. "It isn't at the border. We have to go back home."

"Nonsense," snapped SohRyu and flew faster.

"What's the matter, serpent?" Rikugou asked. "Are you missing an appointment with your girlfriend?"

Touda didn't have a girlfriend and he suspected Rikugou knew that. He just wanted to hear him admit it.

"I'm telling you," he said putting as much urgency into his voice as he could. "I have a feeling that something's wrong and we need to get back."

"If you're worried about Tsuzuki," Rikugou said a bit more kindly. "There's nothing we can do unless he summons us and he can summon us from wherever we are."

"What's that?" SohRyu glared at the Earth shiki.

"It's not completely unheard of for a shiki to feel when their master is in danger," Rikugou explained. "It's the bond that ties us to our masters, I suppose. Some shiki have been known to get nervous whenever their master did."

"Then tell me why I'm not feeling anything? We're all tied to the same master."

"Well, I know it sounds unlikely," Rikugou admitted. "But it could be that Touda is more sensitive to the bond."

Touda hissed. He was not sensitive, damn it!

"Fire shiki are more moody than the rest of us," Rikugou added hastily. "Maybe they just react more strongly to changes in their master's mood as well."

Suzaku, Tsuzuki's other Fire shiki wasn't with them and they didn't have a way to contact her now, but Touda was quite sure that that wasn't it. He'd always been very calm for a Fire shiki.

"Alright," SohRyu agreed. "Try to ignore it, Touda. Most likely Tsuzuki's just in trouble with his boss again."

"Or he might be nervous about a date," Rikugou threw in. "If there's any actual danger he'll summon us."

But what if it wasn't Tsuzuki? They'd been bonded for decades and Touda had never felt like this.

"I have to go back," he told SohRyu several hours of uneventful border patrol later. "I can't stand this any longer."

"We'll be finished in half an hour," SohRyu countered. "Then we're all going back. You can wait that long."

"We should have left you at home to baby-sit like we usually do," Rikugou teased. "You're impossible to work with."

The feeling did not go away when they turned back. If anything, it got stronger the closer they got to the palace.

"Alright, Touda," SohRyu sneered at him as they landed and walked to the door. "We're home. And where is your grand emergency?"

Touda still felt like something was wrong. "Maybe ..."

And then they were inside and Kijin threw himself into his father's arms. "I'm so sorry, Father! I only turned my back on her for a second!" he cried.

"What?" SohRyu asked confused. "What happened?"

"Tenkou's ball got caught in a tree," a very pale servant explained. "She climbed up to get it and took a bad fall. She'll be alright, though. Just a few broken bones. The doctor's with her right now."

"She was in such pain!" Kijin sobbed. "I'd have gotten the ball for her, if only she'd waited a moment. I was just ... just ..."

"It's alright," SohRyu mumbled trying to calm one child while he really wanted to be with the other. "It's not your fault. Tenkou should have known better, but she'll be fine and will know to be more cautious from now on. Pain is an excellent teacher."

"She was hysterical," the servant continued sounding somehow displeased. "She cried for you for hours."

"I'd best go and talk to her then," SohRyu agreed gently extricating himself from Kijin's grip.

"You can see her," said the doctor who'd just come out in time to hear those last words. "But talking will have to wait until tomorrow. She wouldn't calm down, so I gave her a tranquilliser. She's asleep now."

SohRyu nodded and walked into Tenkou's room very quietly. The little girl looked very small and pale all packed up in bandages. Against Touda's black clothing the paleness stood out even more.

"Get out," SohRyu hissed at the serpent, too afraid to raise his voice.

"Can't," said Touda nodding towards his hand which Tenkou was clutching with both of hers. "It'd probably wake her, if I tried to pull away."

Just how had the serpent managed to get in here while Tenkou was still awake?

"Maybe we really should have left you to baby-sit." Kijin just wasn't old enough to be trusted with his sister's care, yet, and somehow Touda had known. 


End file.
